Not Quite Universal
Magican asked:
It seems to be a universal practice/tradition to burn a card at the start of a deck/shoe and following a change in dealer. Why is this so?
Burning a card with a dealer change is not quite universal. Many of the casinos that I play do not do that, at least in Shoe games. (In pitch games, they often break the deck and reshuffle.)
When a new dealer burns a card, some players will think disrupts the "flow of the cards" and will either lower their bets, or leave the table.
Burning the first card from the pack does seem to be universal. I presume it originated because of fear that the top card might be partly exposed during the cutting procedures. But I am not sure.