Not that I really care about the topic and all, but Anime such as Naruto, Dragon Ball and Bleach are in the multiple hundreds of episodes because they did so well in japan. It has nothing to do with the fact that they were well received in the west. The simple fact is they are Marketed to young men who like Heavy Action with an Over Arching story rather than the typical female oriented anime such as Clannad which is very heavy into character development and short stories to tell a Big story.

Personally I love both styles, though I can't stand watching anime like Naruto in less than 10 episode increments. That's simply because those anime are designed to be cliff hangers in every episode and nothing ever happens in twenty minutes.