In a way,"lazy" means efficient.

The average spoken American English indeed sounds lazy compared with standard correct British English. The main problem with that statement is that very few people in Britain, outside the highly educated, speak standard British English. I lived in England for a time and the English spoken by the general population takes about the same number of shortcuts that American English does. It is not a complaint. In fact, it made the language pleasing to listen to. The fact is that for any language, the general spoken form of the language is going to sound 'lazy' compared to the standard version used in writing. And to suggest that Americans should have continually gone back to England to keep the language pure, especially after the revolution, is completely unrealistic if you apply the lessons of history to it, not to mention a complete stretch of imagination.

Meh, it depends. Some Europeans want an American accent, some a British accent. American English is the most widely spoken in Europe (minus the UK of course) thanks to American series and books. In European schools however the main focus is on British English. So a European that speaks good English probably speaks American English, a certain percentage of Europeans that speak with American English try to teach themselves British English (like me) because they think it sounds, better, nicer, funnier or whatever.