To me it's a kind of freaky thing because I rarely hear people use it fully in casual conversation. Penso che tu abbia ragione, how often do you hear that? There's a great deal of Italy that's pretty casual about their language use. Then there's the French, where you hear various stories. Like they not only expect a lot from foreign speakers, they're also terrible at understanding other accents. Which you would think is pretty pathetic for being a "language power" with many former colonies etc as they see themselves. As a counter point to this I heard the theory that it's not so much that they are poor at understanding, they just need to warm up first. Which answers the question "wtf is wrong with you people that you have to start every question with Est-ce que". In sharp contrast, despite what they teach you in classes, I was sitting in a restaurant in Napoli, guy at the next table has the waiter's attention and says "Menu". Just like that, no vorrei, no per favore, nothing at all superfluous.
Ain't it.