Sure, I get it! Maybe it is all just a fad that will pass. I don't hold judgement for people who enjoy a more classic espresso, but as I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I was in Europe most of 15 years ago and you'd essentially get "oh, you're one of those people" looks if you wanted anything but a dark roast espresso. The OP of this thread would likely be as annoyed by trying to get "a cup of coffee" in Italy as in any pretentious city in the world, assuming he doesn't happen to like dark roast espresso.

Both sides can be pretentious. Dogmatic attachment to tradition can be pretentious just like overzealous modernism. I certainly wouldn't order an espresso in Milan and then be upset that I dislike it, but I would find it annoying that it's difficult to find a cup of coffee I do enjoy, just like my British friends find it difficult to find a cup of tea that meets their preference, which I also think is a sub-par way to prepare a drink.

Plus, the espresso fad is kinda already long-dead in America. Sure, there's Starbucks, but no one's really getting a black coffee or espresso shot there. If anything, America's contribution to coffee that has persisted for decades is drip coffee and more recently handbrew pourovers (though Japan and others also contributed a lot there). There's a reason the Americano is essentially just espresso made to taste like drip coffee.