without having to count how many other gringos shared that choice, would be my ever be it so humble advice...

I agree for those who already speak Spanish well enough to converse about just about any topic with your neighbors. If you need to learn the language, you may want to consider an area with a lot of gringos to get a little acclimated. Those places will also have a concentration of Spanish teachers, so go to it and learn. Then the whole country becomes your oyster. Before we bought a place on the Costa Alegre (where we speak quite a bit more Spanish than on Lake Chapala) we lived for almost four years one town away from one of the greatest concentrations of expats in Mexico--Ajijic. But living just one town East meant that our neighbors were all Mexicans. We still rent a place on Lake Chapala and are visiting right now. We have been invited and had la comida with two of our Mexican family friends already in the six days we've been back. They speak basically no English. So I guess, too, that you can be in an area of lots of gringos but still interact to your heart's content with locals. BTW, when we say "lots of gringos," we mean up to 5% of the population, no more.