Regarding noise, it's usually OK but those goddamn political mofo's shouting out the megaphone of their trucks is REALLY loud and annoying.
As for phones, yes they are relatively polite. There are some negatives to the phone issue though- they use proprietary networks, the didn't start selling smartphones til 2005, getting a prepaid phone is a huge pain in the ass and hardly anyone sells them. You forgot a positive point though- "text messaging" is long obsolete in Japan, all their phone email is real email with an @ in the address
Public transit is awesome (never once drove a car in 5 years) and one of the main reasons I'm moving back after a one year hiatus. Better yet are bicycles- you can go anywhere as all roads have sidewalks, but in Tokyo expect to be discriminated by cops (bikes must be registered, cops do "random" checks and pull over bikers to check if stolen, but guess who gets checked a whole lot more than the Japanese?)
Never noticed the white noise thing, all I know is that for more than half a year the were constructing an old folks phone next door to my apt. complex and I thought it was loud.
Portion control- OK, but the downside is much, much less variety of food than in America. For instance we'll have an entire freaking aisle of nothing but cereal, in Japan you'll be lucky to see more than a dozen on the shelf (that's just one example, I could go on and one). Also, the place sucks for vegetarians. And food is much more expensive than the US (soda costs 3x more, and don't get me started on fruit).
Convenience Stores: I'll give you that, you should also know that you can ship packages from them, and you can order crap from the internet, print out a number and take that to the store and pay instead of using a credit card (though I would have liked to have a card, the Japan CC companies always rejected my applications).
There's a downside to the vending machines- they hardly ever sell snacks like candy bars, chips, etc. Mostly just drinks
"Once you have used the Japanese version of a Western toilet, it's hard to come home."
Yeah but the Japanese style toilets suck (they are just holes in the ground), and the sinks rarely have soap or towels.
When I came back to the US, I was thinking about moving to NYC while temporarily staying with my family. But looking at renting costs alone shot that idea down (so I'm heading back to Japan soon) it's pretty damn pricey even well outside the city such as on Long Island. In Tokyo, my friend was living within a 20 min bike ride from one of the major downtown areas (ikebukuro), there was a train station within 10 walk from her place with at least four train lines. This was a 1 bedroom with loft, costing between $600-700 a month. It was less than 10 years old as well (there are some shitty things 'bout Japanese apartments though, they don't give you a fridge or heating/cooling unit, or even goddamn fixtures for the lights).