Bridge is widely considered to be the queen of card games on both sides of the Atlantic. However, there's one huge difference between the way that (most) Americans and (most) Britons play. In American Standard, an opening 1NT bid signifies a balanced hand of 15-17 points. In (British) ACOL, the same bid signifies 12-14 points balanced.
As someone who learned Bridge in the UK, it seems to me obvious that weak no trump is the better system. A 12-14 point balanced hand comes up WAY more often than a 15-17, so you're getting a lot more use out of the bid. Yes, you will proceed to game from a weak no trump bid a lot less often than from a strong, but that doesn't seem very important. The amount of bidding space that you take away from your opponents by a 1NT bid where they have the balance of the points is a huge bonus, in my opinion.
Could it be that British players just prefer playing aggressive, interferential Bridge? As well as weak no trumps, I also love weak jump overcalls, whose main purpose is to eat up large amounts of the opponents' bidding space, to prevent them easily making games and slams that they have the points for. Do Americans prefer a "fair" game of Bridge, where you bid on the points you have, not to mess the opponents around?
I'm sure that the strong no trump would not have remained central to American Bridge for so long if it wasn't pretty robust and well-thought-through, though. So can any aficionados of it explain to me what's so good about it?