I can't say as I've had many of the bad experiences you describe. I've played a few of the private clubs in my area, and I've always felt like they treated me BETTER than many of the public courses. Maybe it was because each time I played I was playing with a member. Who knows?
I actually had the opposite experience to the scenario you described about the starter asking you to move to one of the more forward tees. Last year I was getting ready to tee off on #2 (playing the white tees), and I see the ranger coming down the fairway towards our tee. He sees that we're getting ready to tee off so he pulls the cart off to the side of the fairway and waits. I tee off and hit a pretty nice, long shot. Probably about 260 or so.
The ranger drives up and says "if you drive the ball like that, you should probably be playing from the blues". My response was "well, I would, but I don't think that being a 15 handicap earns me the right to play the blues just yet". He nodded in agreement and said "fair enough".