Usually I side with employers on most issues like this, but in this case, I'm having some sympathy for the employee (I will say my only knowledge of the case is whats in this article).
So the employee is a little mixed up in the head. I think that taking a little extra time to make coffee, and not having her make drinks during peak hours is not a big deal. And I can't imagine that Starbucks has people banging down their doors asking to work for them. I can only assume she was a good employee during the two years the accomodations were made.
I think good ol' Bucky's got themselves a manager who takes making coffee a bit too seriously. Is it worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? Probably not, but she's entitled to something. Starbucks made a boo-boo.
If you can't do the essential job functions, even with reasonable accomodation, then you can't do the job, period. It would not be safe to assume that she was doing well in the first two years. I would be safer to assume that the previous manager never documented her as not being up to par. Starbucks may get screwed on this one.
You apparently read a different article than I. The one I read showed an operation which bent over backward trying to get this employee up to speed and never could so it cut its losses. The nutcase was not too nutty not to find a lawyer to harass the company.
You'd be surprised. When I was out of work for a couple of months and beginning to get desperate, I applied at Starbucks. They never called me. I was probably "overqualified".