German Brewing

The whole goal of well attenuated but full bodied beer with great foam that step mashing seems to help with sounds like it would apply as well to, say, an Ordinary Bitter or American Pale Ale. This got me thinking - do any of you guys apply some of these German inspired mashing techniques to non-German brews? Or would more modified UK/US malt not really need or like them?

I know protein rests are very malt dependent but wasn't sure about a hockhurz style step mash.

No...Those beers are crap & we don't brew them.

Just kidding.
Yes.
You can apply them to a lot of beers.
I mean, German immigrants brought a TON of brewing to the US.
They're the reason we have many of the iconic beers that thrive, today.
And...Your beers will be noticeably better than many of the ones brewed with the lazy methods being preached by folks that we look to as "authorities".

Hochkurz is just fine for highly modified malt.

30-40 minutes at 62c followed by 60 minutes at 70c would work extremely well for most American ales.

I personally am not nor plan to anytime soon, step american malts.

I'm more thinking Crisp Maris Otter/Simpsons Golden Promise in ordinary bitter - a style that should finish low but not be too watery.

I am with Bryan. I don't think it's necessary or does anything to achieve what you're after in an American or British style beer. I have step mashed IPAs and other styles before, but I don't think it makes for a better IPA.
Having said that, though, I don't think it would hurt it any.

I have an alternate hochurz profile set up for English ales. It uses 149F as the first rest instead of 143-145F, as according to Bamforth, 149F is the perfect temperature for optimizing conversation in British beers. I suppose it could also be called single infusion with a brief pause on the way to washout