What country are you from? That is not the experience for people from my country (Uruguay, Latin America), nor for any of the high population countries, and it is highlighted in this article.
I applied for (and was granted) an U.S. visitor (B-1) visa last month, it was very expensive, I had to fill out a form that took significantly more than 5 minutes (several hours because I had to contact family members for details), and I had to schedule an in-person interview where they (very politely) cross checked most of what I wrote in the visa form, and were very detailed in the questions.
That's why the article says "If your country does not participate in the Visa Waiver Program or you are not eligible for an ESTA, you'll need to apply for a B-1 business visitor visa… the long way."
"We'll work with you through this process. Start early, as soon as we have dates for a meetup or conference. Visa appointments and processing can take weeks to months."
That directly contradicts your claim (and matches my experience).
I still haven't flown to the U.S., but those in my family who have, experienced multi-hour delays (my mother lost her flight in Boston only last month due to 2 hours in the immigration queue), most of my family members have been set aside for in-depth questioning at least once, etc.
I do know some Europeans have a very different experience (those under ESTA), but I'm not certain your saying "the experience of 99.9% of those who visit" is correct.
You might notice that none of the highly populated countries (China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia and Mexico) are in this list:
http://www.esta.us/visa_waiver_countries.html