>a) why when Mr. Hyde is on a rampage through New York, it's
>always Daredevil - not the FF or Spider-Man who emerges to
>fight him?
>
That's always been odd, but maybe he's just rampaging through Hell's Kitchen or something. OR maybe when Magneto tries to destroy Manhattan, the Fantastic Four or the Avengers don't show 'cause they're saving the planet from Dr. Doom or off in outer-space fighting Skrulls or something.

>b) after years of getting their asses handed to them by New
>York's superhero community, why didn't the villains wise up
>and try Philadelphia, Detroit, Texas, Los Angeles (well, there
>was the West Coast Avengers), Florida, etc.?

The actually came up for an explanation of why there are in mid-west heroes in an issue of "Quasar" of all places. If I'm remebering this right, there were two cosmic entities living in Minnesota or something: one was responsible for creating all the superheroes and villains on Earth, and other that could erase them from existence. Since he lived in the midwest, the nullifier guy would wipe out the existence of any mid-west super-heroes and villains soon after they were created. I guess his power had distance-restrictions or something, since it didn't stretch to the costs. I always found that explanation kind of lame, but Marvel did write it in the early '90s, so there ya go.