I certainly agree, but then I was raised in an environment where expressions of sympathy were mocking, not empathetic, thus it took me a long time to figure out not only that there were two interpretations, but that both could be sincere. I was further confused by having several Indian national coworkers at DEC for whom any form of "I'm sorry" was just a polite conversational placeholder for "sucks to be you then, this changes nothing".