most tipped employees feel they have earned and / or deserve a tip of a certain size
While I don't disagree that some servers feel this way, I don't believe it to be true. We don't "earn" or "deserve" anything. Tips exist at the customers' discretion.
would that not be the prime measure of a guest giving a gratuity - a thank you for service rendered, including the amount and frequency of those services?
No. There is little statistical evidence that shows that quality/level of service is an indicator of tip size. Again, tips are at the sole discretion of the customer, and a large tip is more indicative of big-tipping habits overall than anything the server actually did (provided, of course, that the server didn't royally screw anything up).
management were not fucking over service staff
I don't understand what you mean here. If you're referring to the way servers get paid, that's not the manager's fault. Federal and state labor laws take into consideration the very real fact that people frequently tip and because of this, restaurants have a reduced responsibility to pay their employees directly. Though it rarely happens, restaurants are in fact required to pay their tipped employees minimum wage when their tips don't meet or exceed the tip credit.
Your answer seems to indicate that wait staff are benevolent and have no expectations of a certain tip
I don't expect tips, but I do predict them because my experience tells me that people will tip. It also tells me that most people tip a percentage of the bill. What that percentage is is anyone's guess. Research into the topic has shown me that people have their own personal tipping habits and that there's little you can do to change them.
you SEEM to infer that the size of the tip should NOT be correlated to the work performed
The tip size is solely at the discretion of the customer. Even in an hourly pay situation, the pay isn't scaled to how much work a person does. It's scaled to how long they're clocked in, not how efficient they are.
but be distributed on an arbitrary basis to meet expectations and completely ignore the fundamentally flawed system as it originates from ownership/management.
Tips are solely at the discretion of the customer. There should be no expectation. And the pay structure does NOT originate from management.
Tipping has existed in the US for nearly 150 years. It predates minimum wage law by almost 70 years. Minimum wage laws for tipped employees were built around the fact that tipping is such a common practice. I don't get paid $2.13/hr because my boss doesn't want to pay me. I get paid $2.13/hr because the law says he shouldn't have to.
Wage disparity exists because of tipping, not the other way around.
Any other questions I can clear up for you?