Question 058: Karate elitists

While resting from an injury and observing class, I had time to note how different a TKD performs its patterns compared to my previous karate school. In my former karate class, we did kata until it was perfect. The TKD class just did not seem crisp and seemed sloppy. Have you ever seen this before? 
One of the problems that I find with some of the Japanese arts are that you are told that you need to embrace Zen concepts, meditation, etc. to gain any level of success. As a Christian, I have always had a problem with that. What is it about Taekwondo that makes it so popular? 
What is it about the art that attracted you to it and keeps you interested? Why do so many karate practitioners seem to hold themselves as more superior to Taekwondo? It is funny that one complaint that other marital artists have with Taekwondo is that the techniques are so basic. Yet, these same people would not mess with a boxer, who has even more basic techniques than Taekwondo.