Contact Approach

I thought my question was simple.

I have never flown a contact approach in 30 years of professional flying.
I'm trying to learn why. Am I (and all my Texas buddies) missing some big
advantage?

All I am asking is what are the differences in the weather, or the terrain,
or whatever, in the northeast that cause lots of contact approaches instead
of visual approaches? Is it because the weather is not good enough for a
visual approach? It would seem that the weather and terrain are similar to
the Carolinas and Georgia where I have done a lot of flying, yet I never
have heard pilots there requesting contact approaches.

As far as the visual approaches I fly regularly, many are at fields that
don't have any weather reporting (so I know that the contact approach would
not be authorized there). ATC just drops me down to the minumum vectoring
altitude, and tells me to let them know when I have the field, and then they
clear me for the visual. There is no consideration as to whether or not the
field is IFR or VFR. I have flown hundreds, if not thousands of approaches,
like this. It is not uncommon on an attempted visual approach in bad
weather, to call ATC back and tell them I couldn't maintain contact with the
runway environment, and need an approach. This usually happens near the
Gulf due to quickly developing fog.

Maybe what I am asking is for some of you who regularly fly contact
approaches to describe the weather conditions that prompt you to request it.