Although the myth of MLS's singular uniqueness in world soccer is somwhat overstated - there are other leagues with financial restraints, that operate closed and certainly that use a playoff to determine a champion - the leagues that most (Europe focused) fans follow are very different.
For those without significant ethnic heritage (ie beyond second generation Canadian) often it's those differences that attracted us to the sport in the first place. All our friends were into hockey or the NFL so that was boring. Our sport, however, it was sexy, mysterious and different. The very rules of how it declared a champion weren't the same. How cool was that.
So cool that many of us started to define ourselves as sports fans based on those differences, while willfully ignoring the sporting culture that we were growing up in.
It's a fool's game. The truth is we are all products of the culture that we grow up in and that culture affects our understanding of everything around us.
An analogy:
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Imagine for a moment that you and I were out for a walk. During that walk we stumble upon a swimming pool with three bright red beach balls floating in it. At this point I turn to you and ask you to tell me what you see in the pool. Chances are you would answer that there was three bright red beach balls iin the pool.
You'd be right, of course. There would be three bright red beach balls in the pool and they would without a doubt be what stood out about the pool. However, your answer would be incomplete. The correct, complete answer is that there was a tonne of water in the pool along with those beach balls. The truth being that the water, as unnoticed as it generally would be, is far more important to the pool than the beach balls, no matter how bright and sexy they may be.
Bluntly, your North American upbringing (the water) far more influences you than your soccer exceptions (the beach ball).
(As an aside this analogy is also useful when arguing with eighth generation Canadians who tell you that they "feel" more Irish than Canuck and therefore don't support Canada internationally).
To bring this back to my original point, the water is why MLS will never fully move in line with the European leagues many want it to. Moreover, most fans don't want it to, even if they are absolutely convinced they do. Caps, closed leagues and playoffs are the North American way and that's the way we like it even if we're a bit ashamed of it.
If you want specific, local evidence look no further than the stands at BMO Field, or Empire Stadium/BC Place. The energy has been sucked out of both largely because the clubs have both been out of the playoff race for sometime. If this was Europe, and we really thought like European fans, the affect would not be as pronounced. Like 98 per cent of teams any chance of true competitive success would have been out of the question about 15 seconds after the season started. There never would have been any chance so we would have gotten down to the business of taking things 90 minutes at a time and supporting our club not for the possibility of reflected glory, but simply because it's our club.
It's probably the healthier approach. It's just not us.