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It's not really clear where Europe ends. Some people argue geographical Europe ends at the Ural Mountains. I guess currently Europe ends politically at the western border of Russia, rendering Austria a Central European country by your vague definition.

The old divisions make a lot of sense because they are still reality. Both in an economical and a cultural sense. Looking at Google Maps makes me consider Cuba to be kind of North America. :P

Except the effects of it is still there, as evident in for example this map: http://wiki.dickinson.edu/images/8/85/Europe-GDP-PPP-per-cap...

There are still significant Economic and Cultural differences, though.

(no, I'm not generalising, talk to a Czech citizen about their Soviet-era banking sector...I imagine the Slovak system is in a similar shape.)

They probably do not know much about the banking sector, as most of the banks (I would say 95%) are branches of Western European ones, like the French Societe Generale, Austrian Erste Group, or the Belgian KBC. The way they bought/privatized/stole them in the 1990s is a whole another story.