Their accent generally made it very difficult for me to guess whether a syllable’s initial was supposed to be alveolar or retroflex (e.g. s/sh, z/zh, c/ch) or if a final was /ŋ/ or /n/, which is a complete pain in the ass when trying to using pinyin.

I’ve definitely heard emphasis on the different tones when southerners speak. Maybe the fact that the Fuzhou dialect has seven tones facilitated that for my family.

4 and 10 are easily distinguishable in actual Shanghainese, as in most dialects.

I wonder people for whom Lazy Mandarin is their native language do mental calculation. Saying 44 must be a drag. I guess they really stress the tones. I know people from Taipei do so.

There’s the funny fact that interrogatives and undeterminates are identical.

Several: 几个
How many?: 几个

Chinese has hands down the best numerical system of all human languages. No wonder they like to use it.

I would guess that the Chinese government numbers things for the same reasons all gigantic, highly-organized bureaucracies, militaries, etc. obsessively number documents and everything. For the sake of reference, organization, recall, data collection and analysis. Aviation and Air Forces are notable for preferring their numeric designation to verbal nicknames (not true in the Navy and only sometimes in the Army, where there is a weakness for non-nonsensical acronyms). High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle becomes HMMWV becomes ‘Hum Vee’.