"IMHO, I believe that much of this that occurred in the United States was a direct result of the immigrants wanting to better fit into their new country and not wanting to be seen as being socially "backward."
That is exactly what was going on. There was even a desire on the part of some hierarchs many years ago that the Orthodox Church here model itself on ECUSA, right down to the clerical dog collars. It was all about "passing for white". Most of that is gone these days except in a some large city areas and I must say a good deal of the change is due to two things, converts who really know what American society is like and how dangerous, spiritually, it can be, and a crop of younger, very traditional priests. Since the seminaries are now graduating large numbers of traditional type American born priests, the future looks pretty good.
With some priests it's difficult to even tell they are Orthodox. A Greek priest in Ft Myers' only Greek church comes to mind, as well as a visiting Romanian priest in Orlando, both in Florida. Dog collars and spanky clean shaven faces to "disguise" the origin, I guess " is passing for white" Anglo-Saxon and not sticking out in a crowd. They looked quite "catholic" to me; in fact, after seeing the Ft Myers' priest first, I had to go back and look at the sign to make sure it was an Orthodox church!
But I trust your observations that this is changing, and that may be another sign that perhaps we are blessed more than others.
BTW, Ft Myers, FL has a small Greek Orthodox monastery in the section called North Ft Myers. Unlike the church downtown, the monastery uses only beeswax candles and pure olive oil lamps. I would say the lamps are on all the time because when I walked into the administrative offices with a small shop and a lovely small chapel, the lamps in front of the icons were lit. Yet the church 10 minutes south of that place has electric lamps and paraffin candles in the "sand box." Fire codes must not be the reason.