Actually, I don't know if it's a matter of the Brits "doing cultural acuity well" (in fact, I'd say given some of their recent problems with imigrant assimilation I'd say they may have some issues here). To me it's more a matter of them being able to pick out their local surrogates with a high degree of precision and effectiveness. That and it was typically an issue of "using" the local nation for economic purposes...they didn't tend to come in with the same level of missionary/moral baggage that we cart around. Behind the "white man's burden" rehtoric the British always seemed to have an acute sense of the bottom line and got out when the cost started to exceed the benefit. Most other colonial powers didn't follow this example, and we went into it with an excess of spirits left over from the abolition movement (IMO). Once the crusading New England types freed the black man, they moved on to the red man and then the yellow/green/purple/whatever man. So there was always an unspoken (or spoken) sense of moral purpose often disconnected with either the national interest or any sort of bottom line.

But, as always, YMMV with this. And I'm speaking in generalities, of course. We've had our successes, just as the British have had their failures.