Thank you, Chaz -- I was typing on a mobile device in a bit of a hurry, but this is exactly what I was looking for -- some concrete examples to start the discussion. Of course, it is hard to see outside one's own upbringing and belief system -- in the West they are heavily influenced by Christianity, on one side, and the European Enlightenment ideas. So, yes, such views are definitely conditioned and could themselves be considered "cultural baggage".
In general, there is a tendency to remove anything that is magical or miraculous and leave just the material. This strikes me as very Protestant thinking. The Buddha is not the only victim -- there was a scholar, for example, Ernest Renan, who did the same thing to Jesus Christ. He just stripped the Gospels of all the miracles and published a tedious life of Jesus as a regular Joe.
Karma and rebirth are central to the teaching of the Buddha and I don't see how one can skip that -- if uncomfortable with both, it is probably best to become (or remain) a Christian. The Christian idea is that we are all born as blank slates and the Creator then doles out fates to us, possibly at random. This has never made any sense to me, but a lot of people think it is natural.
As to rituals, implements, and such, they serve a profound function in transforming the mind of the practitioner. The challenge is not to use them for materialistic ends which defeats the purpose. We have all met people who are dressed to the nines in Buddhist paraphernalia, but is their practice pure -- does it lead to a transformation of the mind? On the other hand, throwing it all away can also be pollution of the Dharma, so it is better to strike the middle ground.
The Tibetans spent a lot of time adopting Indian culture as a vehicle for Buddhism. They have great respect for it. If you look at a Dharma text in Tibetan, it will have titles in both Sanskrit and Tibetan and even the shape of the book derives from that of Indian manuscripts. Tibetan Buddhism is basically Indian Buddhism that has evolved in some outside aspects to adapt to its new environment. But the transmission of Dharma to Tibet was pure and complete -- there was neither rejection nor aping.