Just like the first queen of Carthage.

hyperbole or hyperbola?

let me try: l0ve4eva
Do you see *'s?

It seems like that would make it easy to get lost, fractals have an odd way of looking similar at various magnifications.

I always thought they could be odd but I had no idea liberals smoke hippies.

a) I worded (a) poorly.
My point for bringing it up to you was that you seemed to have commandeered the thread and to start talking about how much more intelligent the NZ way of doing things is (see point (b)), by cherry picking an expression from my post that I had addressed to someone who was (at least hypothetically) living in a country that practices tipping.
I mean, go back and read it: Obviously "tip better" is an alien concept to people from countries that don't tip and not tipping has nothing to do with being cheap.
I'm not sure what these comments were meant to add to a thread that was talking about tipping in a country where tipping is customary. But it came across (to me) as a segue into (b).
As to the fact that this is a public forum, I'm perfectly aware of that and am open to people jumping in anytime, so long as it is in context.
b)Your reply to (b) just sounds like backpedaling to me. Let me quote your original line:

That certainly sounds to me like you are saying it is a bad (you can substitute 'pointless' if you like) tradition. Plus, everything you said up to that point was from the standpoint that the only reason for tipping was to compensate for low wages (thus raising wages will render tipping unnecessary--so we can do away with it, like in NZ, where "the entire concept just doesn't make sense"), which it emphatically is not.
Maybe it's not what you meant to say, but your first post certainly comes across as saying that tipping is a backward/bad/stupid/pointless tradition that would be rendered obsolete by a higher minimum wage.

A) I wasn't talking to foreigners in my post
B) It seem to me to be tremendously narrow-minded to think that just because we do something different that you are used to that it must be a backward tradition: It is perfectly rational to have service employees get paid by their customers, based on the quality of the service (as several of my latest comments have argued)--which is the whole point of tipping.
If you don't like it either stay put or don't eat out when you come to the US.
"When in Rome . . ." and all that.

Are you trying to be dense?
It is a perfectly good and logical system (as I went on to explain).
Just saying "nuh uh" doesn't really contribute much to the conversation, does it?

I get that not every waiter at a high end place will be in his 50's, but the point is that whoever is in those places *should* be damned good at what he does, and has almost certainly put in a few years in lower level restaurant jobs.
Same point for the having a house and family. I'm not saying we should tip people based on their living expenses, I'm saying that we are dealing with people who should be operating at a truly professional level.
And yes there is a world of difference between someone who is 18 with a nice smile, and someone with 10-20 years of experience waiting.
I don't know about your cousin, but I doubt she stepped into--what I would consider--a high end restaurant as a waitress. I'm guessing she put in a year or two working mid-level places, starting as a busgirl, and moved up the ladder.
I've also traveled. And service is hit or miss. At least in the US when you get a truly bad server you can stiff him, instead of paying out the ass for a miserable evening.
I don't mean to be snooty, but I can't help but wonder whether some people who are saying the service at nice places is comparable to service at the low-end places just don't notice the details of good service or have low expectations in general.

how can you go from "the system is broken. Utterly and terribly" to, one sentence later, "waiting tables is the best money in town . . . waiters are the last people in the world who want to change it"?

A, there is no extortion because there is no threat/demand. If a waiter told you to tip him better or he would spit in your food, you would, I repeat, be an IDIOT to ever eat there again in your life. If you could prove it, you could probably get the restaurant shut down,and you could certainly get him fired.
Also, the restaurant has to make up the difference between basepay + tips and minimum wage:

from the US dept. of labor.

The percentage rule is just a guideline. The assumption is that if you are spending $50 per plate you are also getting top-notch service, whereas if you order breakfast at a local dive, you are getting not-so-top-notch service.
At the high end resturant, the waiter should have some real experience, and may well be a professional who's been waiting for 30 years and has a family and nice house; at the dive you may well be getting served by an 18 year old who just moved up from McDonald's.
And at the high end place, the waiter probably is waiting fewer tables at a time (since he is expected to give more time to each) while at the dive, you might have one person waiting the whole joint.
Either way you are obviously supposed to adjust tip up or down based on whether your general expectations were met.
Also, the reason it is good to always tip, as opposed to only tipping for exceptional service, is that then the tip is both a carrot and a stick. You get to punish the really crappy waiter who completely ignored you.
If the waiter were making a constant salary and didn't need the tips, he could do just fine always doing the bare minimum, as long as he didn't make too many customers complain to the manager. Of course if you don't always tip, you may well not even think to tip that one in twenty time when you do get the exceptional service.

Then tip better, and don't go back if you didn't think the service was good enough for a decent tip.

The point of a tip is that you pay for the service you actually got.
Admittedly it isn't a perfect system since people will occasionally stiff perfectly good waiters; but in general it means the wait-staff has a reason to go the extra mile for the client.
I love being generous with really exceptional waiters who know how to take care of people who are trying to have a nice evening.
And I love sticking it to the crappy waiters who leave me sitting for half an hour with no water, and who are out on a 20 min smoke break when I need something.
Sorry, but taking my order when you get around to it and bringing me my food when you have nothing else to do does not entitle you to $10-$20.

My thoughts exactly: Great, another resource-hogging annoyance." What if I lean forward because I'm trying to see something small in the corner?
Rule no. 1 of UI design: When in doubt make the interface stupid but predictable. Smart systems that guess wrong even 2% of the time are just frustrations.