Wow, that was a lot of reading all 17 pages woo! lol
I have to say I completely understand with MMM, and there are both valid points negative and positive on both sides. Depending on what angle you're coming at it with, but for me - right I live Arizona, USA and the main reason why I want to go and possibly live there because not a full fledged otaku wanting to live my live in Akihabara.
I want to go there for the culture and also work there and on the weekends, kind of a work hard and play hard mentality. And after a while if I do end up living in Japan, I understand I will be giving up a lot of things that what we have here in America, that probably most japanese people dream of having like having a house with front yard and backyard, Heck my house right now, my drive way is bigger than half of my old 1 story house - and moving to japan to live there.
I already know full well that I'm probably going to end up living in an apartment that is probably smaller than the size of my room and will most likely have no place to park a car - heck can't even talk about having a car yet cause it isn't a simple process to get a car anyways. Everything takes time and I'll have to have patience over there because living there isn't no easy task; at least I don't think so.
In America, shoot you can buy a decent house for under 200,000 and you'll have your own driveway and garage but instead of being able to walk most places and ride a bus and such, you'll be giving up and have to "gamble" with being on time and get a car of your own and commute a drive to work.
Shoot, now I lost what I really was gonna say
but overall, I do want to go to japan and if I like it, i'll also want to live there for a few years and then i'll eventually find my way to Thailand and visit my "motherland" over there for a while as well...