the only real solution for the "too popular" problem is to raise the prices, which might satisfy you but enrage others who are then priced out.
Here's how that plays out: if enough people start to do that, someone will start a system for sharing information to support them, the discovered places will become trendy and either crowded or expensive, rinse, and repeat (actually, you are already in that cycle—that’s how lots of trendy places happen now.) As long as the Bay Area is awash in money, the same process driving real estate prices through the roof is going to do the same thing to dining prices wherever there is quality except where obscurity creates hidden bargains. But to exploit that you'll need to spend more time than you'd spend waiting in line at known places finding the hidden gems, and then finding new ones as other people discover the one you've found and the obscurity you've been exploiting is replaced with visibility and success.
Eh, that seems pretty generous to me still. I won't wait more than five minutes or so. (i.e. if a table has already asked for bills and I'm just waiting for them to pay and clear out.) I'll give a bit more leeway if there's a seated area where my friends and I can get served drinks while we wait.
I waited in line in Paris at both Obermama (pizza & cocktails) and Kotteri Naritake (butter ramen with very few seats). I've been told to come back in an hour at a favorite spot (corsican food with very few seats).
It definitely happens elsewhere.
There's also obviously the separate fast-food and fast-casual markets that focus on rapidly cycling customers with minimal delay and much lower service levels; they still try to be full as much as possible which still means queuing at peak times, but the queues tend to be shorter in time or just as deep (or deeper), and tend to involve actual physical, rather than merely logical, queues.
[0] http://www.worldcitiescultureforum.com/data/number-of-restau...
I generally love the taste and diversity of food in SF, but I feel like restaurant owners don't value their customers, nor their customer's time when they open a restaurant like this.
My new rule is: if the wait is 30 minutes or more, I go somewhere else. No exceptions. Honestly, I've fallen out of touch with many friends because of this rule, but my time is worth more than that. I actively try to patronize the "critically underrated" places that are good, but have no line down the block.