It appears to be a quite general principle that, whenever there is a randomized way of doing something, then there is a nonrandomized way that delivers better performance but requires more thought.
If I was a casino owner, I would not purchase a non-randomized slot-machine or a non-randomized roulette wheel. (I might if I was running an underground gaming room.)
Two uses of randomness:
Have to express a sequence, and need that sequence to have minimal information content about inner state.
Don't want to be doomed by history, always want maintain a tiny chance of success.
What other uses am I missing?
I'll be moving to Redwood City, CA in a week, so forgive me if I don't get a regular post out every day between now and then. As a substitute offering, some items from my (offline) quotesfile: