I think in England for the most part it’s dialectal rather than colloquial. 
To expand on what I mean the were/was would apply whether you were talking to your pal or the queen whereas you would say pal to your friend and not the queen. That’s why I say it’s dialectal rather than colloquial.
I only just learned about those short versions a few minutes ago, from Tae Kim’s site, as I was double-checking my info.
But actually, it’s not too hard, based on Tae Kim’s explanation of it, to tweak the mnemonics to adapt to the short versions.
First, the short-causative version just replaces せる with す, which is pretty easy if you think of it like SERU = S(ER)U = S(ER
Then, going from short-causative to short-causative-passive, you simply apply the passive mnemonic to the す ending, as a normal godan verb.
So 買わす + られる = 買わ + (す + ら) + れる = 買わ + さ + れる = 買わされる = 買わされる.
じゃじゃーん ！
It’s definitely a dialectal difference between British and American English. While a lot of speakers will be aware that were is the more traditional form, there are probably also quite a few speakers who won’t. Algeo (2010, p. 38) writes:
The preterit subjunctive is used in conditions contrary to fact at the present time: If he were/was here now, we could ask him. In such use, the invariant form were is traditional for all persons and numbers, but in British use especially, was and were are both used in their usual agreement pattern with the subject.
Algeo, J. (2010). British or American English? A Handbook of Word and Grammar Patterns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holy moly, thanks for the info. Incredible what one doesn’t realise.
If I was taller, I could reach that shelf.
I wish I was a little bit taller. I wish I was a baller.
I wish I had a girl who looked good. I would call her.
Well, it only has to be more logical than half of the other languages for it to be a ‘technically true’ statement. 
So, technically, without knowing anything about a particular language, chosen at random, the default probability of any language having a more logical grammar ‘than most languages’ is already at 50% (assuming an even number of languages in the world; slightly less if an odd number).
I can live with those odds. 
The numbers are admittedly easy, defining which characteristics make the grammatical system of a language “logical” would be a much harder task, however.
Reevaluating the sentences, after getting them wrong is very important for the learning process. You’ll feel so good when you deduce yourself what went wrong and get them right the next time.
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