Restaurants rely more and more on tips to make up server wages as cost of living skyrockets and workers need more and more hourly in order to survive. It sucks that businesses aren’t making the difference from their own pockets, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tip. You’re not fighting the system, you’re denying people a living wage.
I don’t think it was an engineering consideration, I suspect it was the only thing they could get past the NIMBYs