What you are describing is not American vs UK attitudes, it is the joys of being a foreigner encountering government bureaucracy designed to remind you that you are a foreigner.

I had the same treatment you are describing when getting my H1B visa in the USA from the UK. And things got even worst when my employer started to apply for greencard, and so I just left the USA.

From a private sector perspective, I had more things paperless available to me in 2003 - when I moved to the USA - in the UK than I did in the USA. And during my time in the USA, I was able to run all of my UK business and government transactions online.