Your opinion of America was clearly shaped by your hosts.
Sorry Stomp, I missed your post! That could be true unless all the three host (serious hi-tech companies -- I have worked with two of them for 34 years) didn't all offer a similar experience. Also, my recent visit to the American restaurant in Frankfurt only confirmed my bias.
What was different was meeting a start-up company in Sunshine Coast BC Canada. The hosts invited us to their home where we got nice food and could enjoy the nature there including a bear outside

Also. the small town around was full of the Ukrainian population so perhaps the food there felt better for me.
a) You ate at an all-you-can-eat buffet. That is the low bar for American restaurant food. It is often populated with Americanized ethnic food like "Italian", "Mexican", and "Chinese". You might as well had gas station sushi.
It was a high standard resort hotel in Virginia. The buffet looked impressively, and (as it is normal in the U.S.) you could ask the cook to make something for you (like fried bacon or fried eggs). Nothing could, however, change the fact the salads tasted bland and bacon was tasteless.
b) Plenty of "typical American hotels" offer breakfast, everything from help-yourself buffet to full service. You could have had a wonderful American breakfast, two eggs the way you like them, bacon, toast, and home fries.
I think you are talking either big hotels in big cities or resort hotels. I have already described a resort hotel (which was indeed a high class itself). You don't find such hotels in Sugarland TX or around Beaumont TX. I was on business and could not chose as I pleased. Another interesting fact was there is no way to get to places by just walking (but you know that).
c) Whatever "touring boat" on the Potomac you were on was obviously not equipped to serve good food. I could take you on a boat cruise of the Cape Cod Bay, where they serve one of the best cold lobster rolls anywhere in America.
The restaurant on the boat looked posh.
Your host screwed you. That's not an exclusively "American" thing.
No, I don't think so. IHOP (that we found ourselves for breakfast) was another bad experience. Pappadeaux? Please, nothing for me.
I also could drive through the whole width of Houston from the east to the west outer beltway. Anything from posh protected neighbourhoods, impressive local downtowns to a real countryside with cows on their pastures
