Maybe my tone was a bit confrontational. Having a good meal out with friends, etc. in a nice restaurant is one of the major pleasures in life.
The problem today is that many people don't know how to behave in a restaurant. They see it as an opportunity to exert some measure of pointless power over the wait staff. They scarf down their food as if it's a competition for speed. And table manners have deteriorated to the point of shameful...
How true!
My husband and I frequent a neighborhood eatery (a pizza place with a separate, small restaurant room where you go for the food, not the atmosphere) and the wait staff get to know you as a regular. One evening there was a family with a screaming toddler; he was really laughing, and at the parents' prompting - the mother was actually encouraging him to laugh with screeches, then would look around as if to say "what can I do?" When our waitress came with the bill she asked how everything was, as usual, and I said "well the food and the service were great..." She looked at me and quietly said "I hear ya!" It annoyed her even more than it did us, as we could leave! She got a larger than usual tip that night.