Unusually, I find myself agreeing with George on most of this. Much as I love the experience of travelling on US long-distance trains, the system as a whole is a shambles, and as George says, much of the enjoyment is due to the quaintness of the rather old-fashioned system. Likewise the metro systems. While the new metros in certain cities are not bad in themselves, they are so limited in their scope and there is little in the way of an integrated metro, bus and tram (streetcar) system such as you find in most of the developed world (and indeed major cities in many developing countries, eg Bangkok). Older systems like in New York are creaking at the joints and are struggling to maintain capacity, which is not in itself unique, as London, for example, is facing the same problems. But the difference is that London is investing billions of pounds in upgrading the system (eg Thameslink, Docklands Light Railway, trams in Croydon, extensions and upgrading to the underground system, Crossrail, London Overground, Oyster cards, extending step-free access across the capital, lengthening platforms, upgrading signalling and power supply systems, etc) whereas New York apparently isn't. As I have said elsewhere, US society over many decades has made a conscious or unconscious policy decision to prioritise, subsidise and, some might even say fetishise, the private automobile over and above public transport.
On the other hand, the US freight network seems to me to be much better developed than the passenger network, again a conscious policy decision, I presume. Your freight trains do run very slowly, though; in Europe I would say freight trains generally run faster.
I don't wish to enter into politics, but some of the best integrated transport systems in the world are in rich nations in Europe and Asia which are far from "impoverished socialist countries". Note also that for good or ill, many countries have privatised their railway systems, which could hardly be called socialism.
I also agree with George that the Wordwide Railfan forum is probably not the place to discuss NJT, which already has its own sub-forum, but as with many topics this one has developed and insomuch as we are now apparently comparing the US system with worldwide systems, it's probably more appropriate to do so here than in one of the US fora.