An article from New Zealand surprisingly gets a lot of things right about the U.S. Patent system.

It is a myth that only weak patents are litigated. Quite the contrary, only strong ones are. That is because they cover important inventions that others want to copy.

The article correctly does not excuse the U.S. Patent Office for doing the best possible job during examination. However, it does place the burden on the lawyers for drafting from the outset the strongest possible patent application. The article also does provide this good advice for patent filers:

For many non-U.S. patent firms, it has been standard practice to minimise U.S. filing cost by simply filing, in the U.S., the same application (and the same claims) that were filed in the first filing. This practice assumes that if any changes to the claims or the specification turn out to be needed (as indicated by the U.S. Patent Office during prosecution of the patent), any needed changes can be made later by amendment. From the above discussion, however, it will be appreciated that many non-U.S. inventors will be better served if good U.S.-style application and claims are drafted prior to filing the U.S. application.