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Sometimes it seems like a lot of basic Japanese words are typically written in
hiragana rather than kanji.

By "basic", I mean pleasantries that are probably the first thing non-native
speakers learn in Japanese: "おはようございます", "こんにちは", "ください", "ありがとう". Some of
these can be written in kanji, for example "ください" can be written as "下さい". One
pleasantry that isn't typically written in hiragana is "お願いします".

Are a disproportionate amount of such words typically written in hiragana, and
if so, why?
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question
hiragana
Why are a high proportion of basic Japanese words written in hiragana?
A lot of those basic words are related to old expressions. See the kanji that
snailboat mentioned in a comment. For example, 御座る (ござる) in おはようおざいます and 有難い
(ありがたい) in ありがとう.

It's hard to speak to what is a disproportionate amount. But as to why,
consider that basic words like ありがとう and おはよう are learned by Japanese children
at a very young age. Children learn hiragana first and when they start
learning kanji, they start with simple and basic kanji like 日本 (にほん) rather
than those used in 御座る or 有難い.

Of course, these other kanji are learned as Japanese grow older. But you can
see why these basic phrases are often written with the more accessible
hiragana when you consider that they are some of the earliest words learned by
children.
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Although it's difficult to show a formal reasoning, it could be said that
**reducing pointless kanji usage** is undeniably an orthographic trend of
post-WWII era. "Pointless" roughly means a word no longer preserves the
meaning the kanji which assigned to it suggests, or in today's linguistic
jargon "[semantically
bleached](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammaticalization#Semantic_bleaching)".

Things like 補助動詞, including ～てください, are typical examples of semantically
bleached words. They're very similar to some English words such as _be going
to_ , which now simply indicates time progress without actually going
anywhere, and accordingly lost its original spelling becoming _gonna_. There
was [a government
directive](http://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/9287048/www.bunka.go.jp/kokugo_nihongo/pdf/kunreibesshi_h221130.pdf)
issued in 1981 (and updated in 2010) explicitly named ください and a lot of other
words need to be written in kana in official documents.

Greeting clichés are also used without thinking of the original meanings. In
English we can say _goodbye_ without fancying how a bad _bye_ would be like
(well, etymologically it's from "[god be with
you](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1505/what-is-the-origin-of-
the-word-goodbye)"...). Your examples おはようございます, こんにちは, ありがとう _seem_ to be
retaining their full form, which in fact not, because:

> Expected pronunciations: おはよう{LHHL}ございます{LHHHL}, こんにちは{HLLLL}, ありがとう{LHHHL}
>
> Actual pronunciations: おはようございます{LHHHHHHHL}, こんにちは{LHHHH}, ありがとう{LHLLL}

So it's clear that people no longer take them as a meaningful words they look
like. The fact many people spell こんにち **わ** and こんばん **わ** instead of は also
proves the origin of them has totally forgotten.

Of course these are merely "guideline" and not rigid "rule" so you have no
obligation to follow, but it's also true that those conventions are steadily
maintained across official, media and pedagogical writings.
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