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I do believe in being polite and decent to people, but I think that being too petty about other people's manners is very rude in itself.
I don't see any problem with not saying 'please' or 'thank you' as long as the implication of platitude is there. A 'cheers' or 'nice one, mate' always seems warmer and more genuine to me than a formal 'thank you.'
As for bumping into people and apologising, I decided last night that that is dependent on circumstance. I was in a club where it was impossible to get around without pushing past people, because certainly nobody could hear you if you said 'excuse me'. I discovered that if I jostled past people and carried on, nobody seemed to give a fuck (pardon my language), but if I stopped to apologise or tapped them on the shoulder to ask if I could get past, their attitude was one of 'Why are you wasting my time?'
Just one more example before I bore you all rigid. My old Latin teacher used to tell us off if we said 'pardon' and would even prefer us to say 'what?'. This was because 'pardon' is just an abbreviation of 'I beg your pardon', which is in itself an abbreviation of 'I beg your pardon, but I didn't quite hear what you said. Would you mind repeating it, please?' and as such is completely meaningless on its own.
Essentially, politeness is not a matter of following protocol, but simply demonstrating respect for others, however you do it.
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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."
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