I used to go to the Globe pretty much every week (it's open air, so plays were only on in summer). One thing that I did not mention is the fact that the £7 tickets are actually "standing" -- I kindof prefer that as it means you're up right next to the stage. I always bought tickets on the day and they're pretty much never sold out (popular days/weekends could mean a fairly tight view :)
About scalability, as someone already said, there are so many venues available that pretty much whatever you wanted to do, there was always available seats for you -- just perhaps not in your first choice of venue (even after restricting your ticket price to £15 or less) Heck, as you're already in London and the public transport is free (you've got a travelcard as you have to commute to work anyway), you can go and do/watch/listen to something for free every night of the week.
Point taken about CD's in the library. But somehow even though I had the opportunity to take them out of the library before, I never made use of it. I guess I never knew I'd like classical music. But as the live performance was so cheap, I tried it and found I really liked it.
And now I live on the outskirts of London. I pay about the same in rent (bigger place) but hardly ever go into London. Mainly because I used to live about 12minutes from Waterloo and now it's more like an hour and a half (which means all trips have to be planned for weekends; as I can't really be bothered to head out after a full day's work)
Would I rather still live in London? Possibly not. But I'm definitely happy I lived there for a couple of years.
>>You'd be surprised what a couple extra thousand dollars per month adds up to in the long run
Well, like I said, there really is no change in my rent (but I now have a two bed flat and not a one bed), and I now own a car (additional expense). I've also stopped eating out, as restaurants are nowhere near as cheap as they were in London (expensive restaurants were a lot more expensive, but I've never found places that do £2.50 mains like in Tooting, for example) -- on the flip side I always enjoyed cooking, so this isn't a big deal for me. I am also living closer to work (as I work outside London now), so I guess my quality of life is better & the commute is less stressful (and the pollution is lower).
I'm just not as ready as you are to dismiss all the benefits of living in a city. But hey, we're all different. Just saying that I had a point of view very similar to yours until I was forced (SO's job change) to live in London for awhile. Now I understand the delights of living in London (but I can understand why others may not -- just wish people would give it a try :)