Hi,
It looks like you and Flair are talking about very different sets of circumstances.
I believe (please correct me if I am wrong) that you have talked in other posts about having a working knowledge of T1 diabetes? In which case, depending on insulin usage, and blood glucose targets, the comments you make are completely appropriate.
However, Flair is in a different situation, as a pre-Type 2 diabetic, where it is likely that the thing pushing up blood glucose levels is insulin resistance. As a result, checking blood glucose before meals and then 2 hours afterwards will give a lot of very valuable information on how Flair's body is coping with carb intake in that meal. Some T2s (and pre-T2s) also choose to test at 1 and 3 hours.
A healthy non-diabetic without insulin resistance may well have almost no blood glucose rise after eating (my husband can eat absurd amounts of carbs and never go above 6.6mmol/l at any point). Others are not so lucky. But many of us with non T1-type glucose intolerance tailor our carb intake to prevent rises, in order to reduce generating insulin resistance, since it can be an escalating problem, leading to T2.
As with nearly everything, advice on this, and perspectives on what is 'normal' varies widely between health care professionals and the educated layman, but we all have to make judgement calls somewhere along the line... I go the testing route myself, and try not to raise my bg by more than 2mmol/l after food. Being human, I don't always achieve this! Although i did today