When I was an undergraduate I worked with someone who wasn't technically a "professor", but who had a permanent position. It caused me great anxiety - I had no idea what to call him. As a young undergraduate, I didn't feel ready to call a faculty-type by the first name. I think I went with Dr. Lastname.
I've been surprised to hear undergraduates refer to faculty as Dr. Lastname. I realized that in my mind, Prof > Dr. I hadn't understood why undergraduates would only use the PhD title, and not the Professor title - in my mind, postdocs are Dr. Lastname.
Recently I realized that my viewpoint is skewed from (1) physics and (2) not attending college with many adjunct faculty. At places where some faculty-types only have a master's degree, Dr > Prof. As an undergraduate I did have some classes (in humanities) that were taught by "lecturers", rather than faculty. I didn't understand the distinction and called them Prof anyways. But in physics, all faculty (at MIT) had PhD's and I knew plenty of people with PhD's who weren't faculty.
Now I know better. Right now, I could be adjuncting as a "professor" at a local college. The set of "people with PhD's" does not fully enclose the set of "people who are faculty" so it is problematic to say/assume "prof > dr". It truly boils down to institutional culture: some places most undergrads use Prof, other places Dr is normal, and some are even comfortable with first-names. I'm glad I learned this before I was faculty and become highly offended of an undergraduate calling me Dr. Ackerman (-:
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