I disagree. At a professional level, of sports I've followed to a semi-serious degree, only cricket attempts to maintain this.
A few months ago in a thread here I tried to compare claiming a catch which has not carried to a number of different things in other sports. The conclusion I came to was that cricket was different at a fundamental level. Take rugby league for example - a sport created in England and not played at any serious level in America. Cheating is not only accepted but applauded: if you can get your hands in the ruck and rake out the ball without the referee noticing, you're a hero. If you can stand two metres offside in the ref's blind spot and put a massive hit on your opposing number, your fans will cheer your name and wax lyrical about the great play. This sport has nothing to do with America at all but holds the same values you claim are unique to the country.
The spirit of cricket is a concept unique in professional sport. Whether it should exist up for some debate, but it's not a case of only American sports not carrying it through. Personally, I like it - the spirit of cricket is one of the deepest roots into cricket's history and one of its longest lasting traditions - it's part of what makes the game what it is and the fact that it is survived up until now is a credit to the game and its followers. I do, however, think it is on its last legs as there are already several exceptions which are seemingly just accepted and that list seems to be slowly growing. AFAIC, not walking when you know you've hit it is against the spirit of cricket. I can understand why batsmen do not walk and I don't disrespect them for it - I don't even walk myself - but it doesn't fit in with those traditional set of values. By extension, appealing when a batsman does not work is against the spirit of cricket, as is even appealing for an lbw you wouldn't give out yourself (at an absolute stretch, admittedly). These morally questionable run outs and claimed catches are the next step up but they'll soon become the norm. At an age of fully professional sports with so very much at stake all the time, the spirit of cricket will take a back seat.
Yeah, obviously you ramp up the rewards, you're going to see more win-at-all-costs mentalities. Part of the reason such high paydays aren't good at all for the game.
I didn't mean, BTW, to suggest that the US of A is alone in being of the winning > fair-play mindset, simply that American followers of cricket are likely to take a different attitude to those from other countries. There's still much crying foul at unfair play (sometimes trying to manufacture non-existant unfair play in fact) in just about every regular cricket country. Of course, it's not the same in other sports in those same countries - you mention the League example, I (or anyone) could say the same thing about football in this country. Diving is the most obvious example, but there are others. Stuff that has been prevalent for as long as I can remember, and which I've no intention of trying to find when it first started. Fair play is often non-existant, and despite the fact that some people complain, many revel in it, as long as it brings the results. I highly doubt you'd see the sort of reaction we saw earlier this thread, when 6 or 7 UK posters started saying "I want NZ to win now" after the run-out incident, in any other sport - including those very same posters who follow other sports.
What we need more than anything in cricket is to try and do things that cut-out the rewards for unfair play. It's, obviously, never going to be possible to make this absolute, but to take one of the examples you mention - walking. If we make all Umpiring decisions regarding catches at the wicket correct (which is possible to do, unlike lbws) then you make not walking a completely useless tactic. There are other means of unfair play that can be cut-out in similar ways - a more transparent law on contact for instance. This ties in a little with something mentioned by Scyld Berry in his Wisden notes this year, though the subject was not exactly the same, but it would also solve this problem, or at least give a better chance of it than we currently have:
Originally Posted by
Scyld Berry 
To prevent batsman and bowler barging into each other, I suggest the ICC should experiment with trial games in which the groundsman cuts two extra strips, each one a couple of metres away from the match pitch. The non-striker has to run up and down his strip, like the lane of a motorway, and has the right of way there - ahead of bowler or fielder - but nowhere else. Perhaps the striker, to have right of way, has to run up and down the other strip. In any event, the rights of way should be defined more clearly than they are. Also, impeding a fielder's throw by deliberately getting in the way of the ball should be re-assessed for what it is: obstructing the field, and therefore "out".
TBH, I'd be happy that the moment the Umpire adjudges there has been contact between batsman and fielder which has interfered with play in any way, dead-ball is called. No runs, no wickets (unless the batsman has obstructed dismissal).
