Are those commercially zoned areas useful things for you? For instance, somewhere to shop, a gym, medical clinics? Or is it just random warehouses and industry? Obviously, I don't know exactly where you live James - so what I say may not exactly apply. But, in general, suburban SFH zoning for miles and miles is a bad thing, and it's not solved by just having some token commercial use thrown in here or there, it needs to be actually planned resources that people want to use. There are good examples of suburbia (there's nothing wrong in general with the concept of a suburban area!), I've linked a few, but many aren't well implemented and that's what needs to improve.
Judge for yourself, this is about a 15 minute walk from my house.
https://goo.gl/maps/cJdXg5omJuk4sVPc7
That's not terrible, but still rather car dominant (look at how much space is dedicated to parking as compared to the buildings!) But, better than nothing, I suppose.
Most of the businesses are of zero interest to me but pretty much everything I need is around. I mostly work from home, rarely eat out and do the bulk of my shopping online though so the commercial areas are much less relevant than they used to be, most weeks I don't leave my neighborhood unless I need to get groceries.
We get a lot of stuff delivered, but for food the local grocery services are useless. It's often the case that you get products substituted just to complete the order, so for instance you order toothpaste but they're out, so they give you a toilet roll instead. And the fruit and veg is usually just randomly selected, so plenty of bruised and inadequate produce. So for now we do shop in person, but that requires a car because you need to carry the shopping home otherwise. There are some services that let you pick your products out at the store then get it delivered a few hours later (so in theory you can walk to and back from the store), but they're not available around here.
The walkability aspect is more relating to the daily essentials and other aspects of life... if you run out of milk or eggs, it's not a case of ordering for delivery. It's really nice to be able to walk over to the local convenience shop (~5 mins walk from me) and just pick up eggs. Yeah, it's not quite as cheap as the big supermarket, but time is money, too. It's also nice that I can walk to the gym, and the doctor's clinic, and there are even a few restaurants, pubs and takeaways within walkable distance. That's what making a walkable area is about. For distances further away, the e-scooters or a bike are pretty good ways to move about.
You talk a lot about what "needs to improve" but you fail to consider anyone's needs except for your own. You seem to have difficulty grasping that not everyone has the same view of utopia that you have in your head. Miles of single family homes might not be ideal for someone that wants to go out all the time, but it wouldn't be the problem it would have been 20 years ago anyway. I can order virtually anything I need online, and the stuff that is impractical to order I can go out and get on a combined shopping trip. In many ways I see downtown shopping centers as obsolete, I have fond memories of going to malls and such when I was a kid but I don't remember the last time I bought something from a store in one. "Random warehouses and industry" are useful if you happen to be one of the people working at those businesses.
No, I'm not the socialite yuppie you've got in your head - I'm quite introverted too. I too work mostly from home. I'm more concerned about city design from a sustainability point of view. It's not practical to continue on the current path that America and other countries have embarked upon - and this includes parts of the UK too. It's going to end up in economic turmoil eventually because this model isn't sustainable in the long run, and it's better to act now to try to fix it before too late. There are other issues with this type of suburban design, like the impact upon health by enforcing car dependency (both from lack of exercise, but also pollution and higher pedestrian fatalities), but the most obvious elephant in the room is the economics. And it's possible to strike a balance that preserves space in the home, but improves density and walkability. The thing I can't quite get is why you'd be opposed to this, but I guess it's a different mindset, maybe driven more by a concern over the unknown.
Anyway, this is getting way off topic now, and I sense we'll never really agree on this, so probably best to part ways there. I wish you well in any case.