I think I can help you with this - I lived in North America for many years and now live close to Italy and I play. In North America, Tornado tables are obviously very popular. In Canada, where I lived, before the intoduction of Tornado tables (around 1987-1988) bars and pubs were mostly populated with the Italian made FABI or Garlando tables. Sons of Italian immigrants in Canada played mostly Italian style rules - 'no passing or dragging' (no push/pull kicks), no dinks, no pinning, no snaking, etc. In Italy they still play by these rules. Italians will SWEAR that those are the proper rules. In fact you can go on youtube and finds clips of Collignon matches with comments by Italians (in Italian) saying what a bad player he is because of all the passing and stopping of the ball (go figure).
They are obviously wrong. The international rules are those set out by the ITSF (you can view them on the ITSF's website). Only Italians (and sons of Italian immigrants) play with Italian rules. Everywhere else in Europe players play with ITSF rules (or for the less initiated, something very close).
Now, that's not to say that the Italian style rules don't require skill. They just require a different set of skills. In fact, there is a set of videos on Youtube where a top Italian player plays both Collignon and Pappas (as a team) by himself and beats them in an Italian style rules game. He then goes on to play Collignon with one hand, also in an Italian style rules game, and beats him. But then, of course, they play an ITSF rules game and Collignon smokes him.
What we (my club's players) usually do when we meet Italian players who insist on Italian style rules is agree to play one game their rules, one game ITSF rules. Who gets the most total goals in the two games. Italians, being the proud bunch that they are and wishing to show that they can smoke you in any style, usually agree.