Now, that's an articulated argument!
I'm cutting stuff to avoid walls of text.
On the other hand of the people I know that publically admitted to voting "Leave" are mostly farmers, engineers, doctors, nurses, armed forces,designers ,tree surgeons, builders, people in the financial industry SME owners.... people with a more critical bent- and sure some are older- and more experienced, and actually have seen the rise and fall of the EU and remember life before it - not all- taking age out of it - in my experience the people I have met or known have rarely been racist, are quite well informed and financially literate, generally are self employed - well travelled, hard working intelligent people with analytical minds.
Now- I know this is anecdotal - and me and the group of people I know and have met/are a small sample group- on the other hand - I have been talking to people about Europe and the EU for about 20 years now - and not just in the UK - my family are from and live all over Europe- and I spend a lot of time in many parts of Europe talking to many Europeans, and have seen and heard the consequences in many countries for BETTER and for WORSE- and that has been my experience to be frank- the young urban "educated" group of people you refer to are in my experience the EXACT group of people that only gave a damn about Europe when the Brexit media machine started... then they all had expert opinions.
I can partially confirm your anecdotal reports. A good friend of mine, Englishman, married and living in southern EU, didn't vote because of logistics. That would have been Stay. His family back in England - constructors and engineers - voted Leave. They match your general descriptions. However, they are already regretting it.
I just do not believe in the trade bloc- I think it is ill conceived,poorly structured,over bureaucratic,low on accomplishments, and shockingly financially inept and irresponsible and as a financial experiment, that I have watched unwind over the past 20 years - I think it is a failure. Financially speaking the union is already dead in all but name- there is NO way the union can survive without MASSIVE debt restructuring and right offs and essentially making a joke of the "governance" that has poured from it the past decade.
The trade bloc has pros and cons. I agree there's a significant admission price, but there's the advantage of running financial (and fintech!) services from London without additional costs. There's the advantage of selling UK-produced goods without trade barriers. It's a tradeoff, as usual. I happen to think the tradeoff would have a positive balance for the average UK guy had they Stay-ed.
BUT what I don't give a hoot about- a failed, and long time failing European trade bloc, that is bankrupt, and making decisions that frankly do not help the people of EUROPE...
The EU is indeed full of problems. Some of these problems will be hard to solve, or won't be solved at all. But there is good and bad in the EU. I'm trying to weigh one against the other.
Also please ask a German or a Norwegian, or any of the fiscally restrained , tax paying countries if they are happy being in a trade block with their southern neighbours...
Don't know about Norway, but Germany took swift advantage of the EU when the Union wasn't so fiscally restrained. They snatched the opportunity to fix systemically large banks and basically spread the bill to the whole EU. It's only after this (legitimate given the rules at the time) financial laundry that they started to cry for rigorous monetary policies. Personally, I would welcome some more rigour. I think the 2% target on "inflation" (actually only on the CPI, which is not a true representation of inflation) is a scam - against fixed income workers at first, and against everybody else on the long run.
pps- Back on topic for me - I don't know why I waded into this TBH
Maybe because you care?
I regret it already- frankly not the time nor the energy nor the inclination to go on about Europe any further.
On the contrary, I think we had a good and civil discussion. It can't be bad.