I prefer bike lanes to separated paths. The separated paths attract pedestrians, which cause more problems than cars in my experience.
There are lots of bike lanes around here and most of the highways have wide shoulders. I grew up in the Midwest where there weren't hardly any bike lanes and most of the highways had narrow shoulders, if any shoulder at all. I much prefer the riding here. I think it's mostly an awareness thing that bikes do belong on the road. In the Midwest all I ever heard was "sidewalk" this and "sidewalk" that. Having your own space is nice and I think it takes some of the anger away from people who may have been stuck behind you on a road without a bike lane. Sure you run across your idiots and your salmon out there, but nothing is perfect.