I guess my question is, this seems to me to be an serious and non-trivial problem. I don't know if this is a problem outside the US. It seems that we in the US have the plugs and prongs that are poorly keyed, but other countries may do it better. Why do you think the arrangement in the US is so amateur? Should have it been done better?
I find it curious that you think the US is unusually poor at plug polarization. For one thing, most devices in USA are polarized, and as Nerull said, if your outlets are allowing them in the wrong way around, they are seriously damaged.
Anyway, all of continental Europe uses non-polarized ungrounded plugs, and much of Europe uses non-polarized grounded plugs! (France, Switzerland and Denmark are exceptions, in that their grounded plugs enforce polarity.) So if anything, the US is better at polarization than most of Europe (and Asia and many developing nations, which often don't even have grounding!). Of course, this doesn't mean the US plug doesn't have other shortcomings…
If you ask me, the world is long overdue for plug standardization, with some sort of keying to prevent insertion into an outlet of the wrong voltage. But we all know that's never gonna happen.