East coasters believe themselves to be more realistic and pragmatic than west coasters, I often hear things like "oh yeah that's just a pipe dream that's not how real business is done", or "They're not thinking it through, I have x years of experience, and can tell you it can't be done". The worst part is that it has morphed into a bit of a superiority complex that dismisses innovation. There's just a lack of interest in trying to improve/change procedures because people feel so caught up in putting out fires and being busy in an attempt to look productive. It's absurd. And extends all the way to benign things like dress code. People are afraid to wear jeans at work because it might look "unprofessional" or like they're not working as hard as people who wear 'business' attire.
Yes I said dress code... I just left a job because of this exact old school east coast culture. The tipping point for me was that I received an email that was titled "Jeans in Jeopardy". Unless 90% of people or something donated to the cause we were going to loose our month of permission to wear jeans. I found that email patronizing and down right insulting and decided right then and there that I was leaving. If you trust me to write software that is handling business critical procedures... why don't you trust me to dress appropriately in the office? You can have you're dress code, I'm going to spend my time thinking about software instead of dry cleaning my shirt and pants every day.