I completely agree with you. Its ridiculous to only allow a competent server 3 tables at a time. Like you stated a hostess will know how many tables each server can handle at a time and the act accordingly. When I was a hostess and regular customers came in for a particular server we would seat them even if the server was slammed because as a regular they are usually much more patient and willing to put up w/ a server thats busy, just to sit in their section. This is just another example of retail managers disallowing their employees to think.