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skysooner's right: gift certificates in any form are accounted for as liabilities. Those have to be offset by inventory deduction to be accounted for correctly.
Which isn't to say it didn't work in the old days, it just took some book juggling. And that's probably NOT the reason for the whole gift card thing. I think your rant is dead on the money, yournamehere. It's a way of retaining those last few bucks of revenue, rather than refunding them at the end of the transaction.
Personally, I'd never give anyone a gift card to someplace I don't already know they're spending money. Otherwise you risk wasting the last couple bucks of your gift, as you say.
I don't mind a gift card to, say, Barnes & Noble, because give enough time, I WILL spend the whole card and more there. Not a problem.
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