C'mon now Mossman... I didn't mean to start a war here about the Palace and those who elect to stay there or other AI's on the island. A good friend of mine loves to stay at a southern AI and has been diving with Dive With Martin for decades. If didn't like staying in town I'd probably be diving with them based on his recomendations and their reviews. The best thing you said which leads me to believe you may reside in the 10% of Palace divers who I would enjoy diving with was "I've always blown my "free" diving on better wine instead" which means you know the difference and prefer to pay to dive with another type of diver and another type of dive op than use your resort credits/dollars diving with the Palace house op. The divers staying at the Palace who have made their way to town or to the marina to dive with our op have been great, were experienced, were divign multiple days during their stay and tipped the crew appropriately.
Hot tubs? I'm not much of a fan of any in-room jetted tub as I have a pretty good idea of what takes place in them and what I did in them when I was younger. They may look clean when you arrive but it is not as though housekeeping fills that tub with water and bleach and runs it to clean and sterilize the pipes from what the last guests left in there before the next guests arrive to fill it and eat breakfast in it.
Do I tend to watch what other divers I'm diving with are doing including whether or not they tip? Absolutely because if I'm diving with them they could become "my business". From setting up their gear if it hasn't been set up for them to how they enter, descend, their skills UW, respect for the reef, and (lastly) treatment of the staff. When I see someone putting a wetsuit on backwards, attaching a reg to the tank upside down, not knowing how much weight they need or where to put it, an inability to descend, equalize or maintain proper boyancy, a need to "hang" on the reef... it goes on and on and on. I dive my own dives with my wife and we generally go our own way but when I see someone has been having difficulties I do tend to watch them if they are within my view and away from the DM just as I watch my buddy. If something happens and no one but me sees it, I'm not going to sit back and say "It's not my business" in a life or death situation. That is why I prefer to dive with more experienced divers and dive ops that tend to cater to them.
As far as steaks are concerned, I grew up in the heartland where beef truly was "what's for dinner" and surrounding beef producers kept the best of the best Prime for family and friends. Mortons, Palms, Ruth's Chris, Capital Grille or Black Angus (never dined at Black Angus), not a single one dined at serves a better steak for $50 than I grew up eating almost every summer weekend at a party. I will say, while there was nothing to drink other than cheap beer in a big cooler with ice at those parties as the hard stuff was BYO for the adults. Fine wine growing up? Not where I grew up. Never saw it, never develped a taste for it, and to this day having tried to get into it, I could care less about it.