[MMM]

I think the problem is that you are in Tokyo, which is probably the most foreign populated and has the highest rate of bilingual Japanese in the country. I usually am in Kansai, and rarely had this situation. I asked a cop in Osaka for directions recently, and he said "Is English OK?" and then proceeded to give me a 5 minute explanation which could have taken 30 seconds in Japanese, but I wasn't going to stop him as he seemed pretty happy to use his English.

Get out of the city, and I assure you the levl of English-proficiency will drop.

Also, if you are only talking to people in the English translation or language industries, then that is going to be a problem.

To be honest, I am kind of happy to hear that people are having this issue. 20 years ago this probably never happened.