With all the varied experiences in this thread (owners, managers, servers, patrons, international) there seems to be very little opinion change. I've noticed that my thoughts and behavior about tipping changed dramatically on learning two things:
1. Servers get $7.50/hr base in CA (and
normal min wage in AK, MN, MT, NV, OR, WA).
2. Tipping "culture" = good service is a canard. Tips as a large fraction of server income are a result of management's desire to adjust labor costs to demand. Owners get to offload some of their business risks to tipped employees. Servers are paid for taking this risk, and it's in their interest to use notions of entitlement, norms, whatever to increase their income, all of which are done more convincingly with righteousness and/or self-deception.
The situation reminds me of the long ridiculous discussion of legal and privacy protections about the receipt-checkers at Best Buy. That job exists b/c management wants to police employee-assisted fraud at the checkout and their other security procedures aren't adequate.