Let’s start with a stereotype: when you live in the Netherlands, the perception is that everything is bigger and better in USA. So when we moved to CA about 15 years ago that was one of my preconceived ideas… yes, I confess. When we walked through the house we 
wanted to rent there were some surprises… The bathrooms: the vanity sink was about 3 times smaller than the ones we had in our house in Netherlands – LOL. And when I opened the shower door I found a shower head as in the first picture. Now your reaction is probably: yeah and… My first reaction was: how am I going to clean the shower???? And hubby wouldn’t even fit underneath the shower head… BTW: the shower head I was talking about was position lower than the one in the picture
Then we went to the hardware store and found a solution :
However, a much better solution is this: a shower head on a rail, you can put it higher for taller people, lower for shorter people or take it of to clean the shower/bath tub …
Mirjam
I have always had an issue showers. I’m 6’3″ so even with the tallest shower head, I usually have to crouch. As for bathroom size, my personal experience is the bathrooms here, generally, are much larger than those I have seen in Europe.