I tend to agree with you. I know I try to moderate our plans around our son's abilities at this point. We try to go out to dinner earlier, for instance. We go to a local family restaurant where they know us well and are very kind to us. Another thing that really helps us is we telephone in our order (we eat there almost every Friday, so we know the menu well!). That eliminates the waiting time to get our order. We've found that we have a certain window of time (about an hour) before our son gets restless and the meal becomes a chore. I know some people will say that this kind of accomodation is "giving in" but I don't agree... our son is 21 months old. I think it is more a case of choosing your battles/hedging your bets. We don't hesitate to control him, including leaving the restaurant if need be, but I just prefer to taking precautions that lessen the need for such discipline.
When I was a kid, we never went out to eat until we were much older.
About the only thing we had to do was go to Church, but they had a Sunday School and a nursery. I got a choice to either go to Sunday School or sit and be quiet at Church. I usually would choose going to Church. I would lay down in the pew and take a nap, or I would color. That was way back in the 60's.
It's not giving in --- it's just trying to do family things where everyone is happy --- what's the point in taking a kid to a restaurant or other place he isn't going to enjoy and then whacking him around? My feeling is that it's not important to force kids to go to places they don't enjoy --- if they want to go and can behave then I'm all for kids showing up anywhere.