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The rate were never the same to promote national unity, they're the same to make it easy to mail stuff. If we make some sort of bogus sliding scale for postage rates that depend on the distance traveled and population density of the area it will be nearly impossible to send mail without actually going to the post office. On the other side if you think it's cheaper to deliver mail in NY vs Montana you should look at the size of the vehicles. There's only so much mail they can stick in one of those. You're average NYC appartment complex has enough addresses that it's the ONLY place that carrier serves, some of the big ones require 2 or 3 carriers to handle the mail. Think about sending 6 guys to one block (or 6 trips in the truck, different buildings are handled different ways), that is not cheap. Not compared to some of those BFE Montana places where 6 guys can handle the entire town.

Your point about standardized pricing is certainly valid, but letters delivered per carrier has got to higher in metropolitan areas. Hence the cost per letter delivered has got to be lower.