I have not yet had the opportunity to travel by shinkasen, but I have been remarkably impressed by the everyday train system in Japan as well. Most everything you say about on-time, arrrows for where to wait for the doorways, etc, etc. If the schedule says the train will be there at 4:13, it will be there at 4:13.

Here in Boston, the subway is random. A train could come by at any time, you may wait 1 minute, you may wait 20 minutes. Two trains may come one directly after the other.....a complete mess.