I have new information in my quest to solve the mystery of my hot water.
Apparently, I was pretty close in my last assessment-- when I asserted that a limited volume of hot water could flow through my pipes to my shower. However, it has come to my attention (read: been helpfully explained to me by commenters at koreabridge.net) that my conclusion was not entirely accurate.
Here's how I understand it now:
Korean plumbing differs from American plumbing in one key way: Korean plumbing lacks a hot water tank. I was operating under the assumption that I had one somewhere, which was the source of my hot water. But it turns out that Koreans heat up their water by running cold water on/over/through some sort of heating contraption. This means that you can't really "run out" of hot water. You can, however, have too much water running through the heater, which lowers its effectiveness.
So my idea (and pretty graphs) about ideal water pressure vs maximum water pressure for any given shower temperature was in the ballpark of correctness, but I was wrong about pipe diameter being the cause of the problem.
The moral of the story: you CAN have a hot shower. Just turn down the pressure.
I'm guessing it's a combination boiler (combi boiler), like we have in the UK, which means we don't pay to heat water we're not using. I might need to adjust the pressure, my showers a little cool of late.
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