What is wrong here?

Recently, everytime the boyfriend and I go out to a restaurant, we get either mediocre or shitty service. Granted, twice has been with a large group of people (different groups). Twice though has been with just us. I don't get it. We don't run our servers, we are polite, and we normally are pretty quick in deciding and give our orders as accurately as possible to limit the amount of questions the server has to ask.

Group A dinner was at a medium priced corporate steak house. At one point, I ended up with 4 empty glasses sitting by my full glass. The BF and I each had an adult beverage and a regular drink (tea or soda). When the server came to give us refills on our regular drinks, he brought new glasses and just left the empty ones in their spots. Okay, I realize it can be hard to clear from the table that you just served if you still have other stuff on your tray and I don't expect it. So, I moved all of the empty glasses over to my side of the table, since that was the easiest place to reach them (on the other side were multiple other tables, so everything was being served/cleared from my side). These sat there for over 15 minutes. Seriously. During this time, our server took bread plates from the table, but continued to leave empty glasses. Finally, one of the dads at the table with two boys spoke up and said "maybe we should just put them in the middle of the aisle. They'll get picked up that way." The server ended up clearing 9 glasses total from the table at this point. Service was slow, even for a busy Saturday evening, the bill was messed up twice, and most of us had incorrectly cooked steaks (not even worth it to try to send them back). We ended up being at this restaurant for 3 hours! Totally ridiculous. Also, it was a kiddo's birthday that we were going out to celebrate. No, I don't expect free dessert. I have no problem buying dessert, especially if it meant you would have sung happy birthday to her. When you bring the tray over to show the desserts AFTER giving us our checks, it is pretty well going to be a "no." Instead, we got offered to buy a $25 company rewards card "that next year they will give you a $25 credit for the cardholder's birthday." Um no. We get shitty service and you expect us to pay more money AND come back again next year? No thanks! Of course, an 18% auto-grat is added due to the large party.

Group B dinner was at a medium-high end seafood place (for an adult's birthday now). She had brought her own cake due to food allergies. We had to ask for refills repeatedly. Drinks, both regular and adult, were forgotten repeatedly. We had been seated for 8 minutes before our server finally approached and told us that he would be right back with waters for us (we all were wanting to order alcohol) before walking off. He returned about 5 minutes later to ask what we wanted to drink (with no water for us). Ugh. It took a while to finally be able to order. When we tried to order apps as he was taking our drink orders, we were told "I'll be back for those in a little bit. Let's just do drinks now." Drinks are dropped off and he runs off. When does he ask about apps? When he comes back to take our entree orders (about 25 minutes after we have been sitting there waiting with no bread or apps). Of course, it is a large party, so there is an 18% auto-grat on it. He brought the cake out, took it out of the box, put it on the table, put a tray of spoons down with plates for the cake. Then he pulls a candle out of his pocket and hands it to the birthday girl. One of the women at the table asked "do y'all sing happy birthday here?" He told her "no, we don't have our singing group here today. There ya go!" and walked off. Seriously? I understand being busy and all, but shit. This is ridiculous. I know our total bill for the table was over $300, but it's too much trouble to sing happy freakin' birthday?

I'll go into the other two later. It just amazes me how people can act towards the patrons of their restaurants.