I'm all hears for a solution to this problem. I've been thinking about it and failing at it. The system is really ubiquitous at the moment.
Seems like the only start toward doing so would be to force minimum wage standards to be applied to all workers. This would benefit some but cause significant hardships to some others, so it seems to me unlikely to be achievable.
The chief advantage of tipping is that it encourages people who are skilled at providing customer service to stay in the industry and those who are not to leave. Other feedback mechanisms might be possible, but they'd be much more complex.
You said that it wasn't money -- that it was just not knowing the cost. If that's true, I don't understand at all -- the cost is 20% more than the listed price. If you see a burger at $10, that's really $12 -- it's the same problem as dining in a foreign currency -- the exchange rate for $ to R$ (restaurant dollars) is 1.200.