I do wish the legislature would get their act together and officially legalize these things along the lines that so many states have. There's lots of tax money to be made by the state if sales take off, and the state is doing a great job on expanding the bike infrastructure. Albany has some really nice brand new bike lanes downtown.
I rode about 1300 miles last fall mostly around the Albany/Saratoga County region with several excursions up into the Adirondack high peaks and out along the Erie Canal bikeway (have completed a third of it, going to finish all the way to Buffalo this spring). All on a reasonably stealthy mountain style bike, just out enjoying it with everyone else, not blasting by people and being an idiot. Split about 50/50 between roads and bike paths.
Have yet to encounter any open hostility, and in fact made a couple of riding friends with some pretty serious road bike guys around Schenectady. But I still wish it was completely OK, and there are a couple trails where out of a sense of fairness I don't even turn the thing on, just ride it like a very heavy bike. Seems ridiculous.
I was a road bike guy for a long time, did lots of distance riding over the years. Age, knee and now heart troubles pushed me onto the ebike, and I thank God they exist, because otherwise I would no longer be out here enjoying this at all. But I'm out out there doing my fifty miles and not bothering anyone, and I'm not using a throttle to do it, either.
My wife has a Pedego so we can ride together occasionally as well. She is afraid to ride on the roads, so with her it's the trails along the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, or over along the Ashawilticook trail in similarly legally challenged Massachusetts next door.
And we've met plenty of other ebikes out there as well, lots of ages and types, though mostly skewed somewhat older like ourselves.
Oh yeah, almost forgot... I was a cop here for almost thirty years and I would have been very reluctant to harass someone just out trying to enjoy themselves. To be fair, I understand the problem NYC has with aggressive delivery people scaring the hell out of everyone on the sidewalks in some areas, but that can be dealt with as a local matter under NYC law. To burden some poor bastard who just wants to ride the great Warren County Bikeway to Lake George on a beautiful day because of those guys is absurd.