Yabia: Ari is 100% correct. It is an undisputed fact that the average Orthodox Ashkenazi was more stringently Torah observant and knowledgeable than the average Sephardi. This resulted in a post-WWII situation where the average Sephardi wasn’t very Torah knowledgeable or very observant. And most considered themselves “traditional” rather than religious. Just look at how may numerous Gedolim the Ashkenazic world has produced over the last 500 years, whereas the Sephardic world has produced a pittance in comparison since the passing of the generation that survived the Spanish and Portugese Expulsions.
The Ashkenazic Torah world led by the Chazon Ish, Rav Shach and other Ashkenazic Gedolim worked hard to rebuild the Yeshiva and Torah system in the Sephardic world after the WWII. The vast majority of today’s greatest Sephardic rabbonim (including Chacham Ovadia Yosef zt’l who learnt in the Yeshiva of HaGaon HaRav Tzvi Pesach Frank zt’l, Litvishe Chief Rabbi of Yerushalayim and Dayan of the Ashkenazic Badatz Eidah HaChareidus) leaent in Ashkenazic yeshivos since the Sephardic ones couldn’t remotely compare.
The Ashkenazic mesora goes back to Eretz Yisroel pre-churban and remains unbroken at least since the times of Rabbeinu Gershom, Rashi and the Baalei Tosfos; that’s 1,000+ years of Ashkenazic mesora. Whereas the Sephardic mesora was broken by the Inquisiton when 50% of Sephardim converted to Christianity and the other 50% were forced to leave their home of centuries and move thousands of miles away where their mesora was mixed into the mesora of the local Eidah Hamizrach, resulting in a new mixed practice.