Well on this side of the pond its different the cities are well lit so you dont need Fogs on at all, most of the times you cant even see your own lights because its so bright out, and when you are on the highway, the lanes are split far appart or they have a cement wall between so most of the time you dont see the other lanes, and they cant see you, and so if you use them most of the time you are bothering the ones ahead of you and that is if they are aimed improperly, mine are lowered down and they bearly reach 30ft ahead of the car but they light up the sides like no other, and thats why I like em....
So far I havent had issues with people flashing lights at me for them being too bright but they sure can be seen from long ways away.
With the dual xenon set up I put so much light on the road that I often times find myself leading a column of cars behind me and no one ahead of me, especially in the dark places in the middle of nowhere, most of the drivers feel comfy driving behind me and using my lights to see ahead... LOL... ... >:(sometimes its anoying...
It's a poor substitute for decent headlights though, and you can see quite clearly from the photos you posted that there is a lot of scatter above the cut-off.
Over here HID headlights provide plenty enough light, with a good cut-off and automatic levelling to minimise glare. And they work quite well, you can see well and aren't blinded by oncoming lights. If I switch on the fog lights on my Omega it makes very little difference to the light on the road, but it certainly increases glare.
I expect one of the problems in the US/Canada is the DOT standards for lighting. Quite simply they are a joke -- the beam patterns are often shocking, there is much more glare from what I observed. That before you even consider things like there is no requirement for distinct rear indicators (many cars flash the brake light on one side instead), and no requirement for there to be indicators visible from the side of the car (which is a nightmare on the freeway when making lane changes). The DOT is about 40 years behind Europe when it comes to lighting standards
I still don't like the idea of having fog lights on when there is oncoming traffic, the glare borders on dangerous at times -- I've often had to squint because of it, which obviously doesn't help your chances of noticing something unexpected happening.