greets

I have yet never been able to bring myself to reply to "Hi how are you?" with just a "How are you?" as other people seem to do. It doesn't seem logical.

In limited settings, I may reply, "Fine, how are you?".

But most often, when someone I only vaguely know greets me that way in passing, I tend to reply "all right [smile]". There isn't usually time to get more words out of my mouth, or to even think of saying more. But I've been wondering lately if a reply like that sounds rude? Ie., someone asks how you are, but you only give an answer and don't reciprocate to ask how they are? Even though I know they aren't really asking to find out how you are; it's just a greeting. But is it rude or an ok reply?

Today I heard an exchange:
Person 1: "Hi, how are you doing?"
Person 2: "How are YOU doing?"
(neither person specifically answering the questions but going on to talk about other stuff.)

Maybe that is how people do it, without it sounding completely awkward. Are you supposed to emphasize different words depending on whether you greet the other person first versus replying to someone else's greeting?

more greets

I was remembering this morning that the old-fashioned "How do you do?" way of greeting someone new was sort of like the "How are you doing?" greeting, in that you echo back the same words (although I haven't heard "How do you do?" in so long, that I wasn't even sure about that anymore).

There is interesting discussion here on the topic of replying to question-type greetings with the same words. It turns out there are many such greetings..."what's up", "wassup", "howdy",