What's the fascination with size?

Maybe I've been watching too much Science and History Channel shows, but I've been getting the impression that everybody but Americans are fixated on bigness. The Germans have the biggest excavator on earth. The Canadians use the largest dump trucks on earth, (albeit manufactured by Caterpillar). The Koreans have the biggest shipyard on the planet. And Airbus makes the biggest airliner.

Of course, the fact that most of these shows are imported from Canada, Australia and the U.K. may have skewed my impressions.