The appearance of fairness is often as important as fairness itself. With randomness, you completely destroy that appearance. I'll even bet that a lot of people will make up their own theories about how the tokens are given out ("Oh, that other machine usually gives smaller numbers"). So, my hunch is complaints will actually rise.
Btw, one strategy the article doesn't mention is making queues seem more asynchronous-- this is what Starbucks does when they employ "expeditors", those employees who walk the line and take orders (but not cash). The (partial) success of having ordered your coffee mitigates the agony of waiting to reach the cash register (it also makes people less likely to abandon the line).
Btw, one strategy the article doesn't mention is making queues seem more asynchronous-- this is what Starbucks does when they employ "expeditors", those employees who walk the line and take orders (but not cash). The (partial) success of having ordered your coffee mitigates the agony of waiting to reach the cash register (it also makes people less likely to abandon the line).