Heh, I never pick during prime hours. There are so many others working the pool then that it's just too distracting (even in towns outside the Landing) and the ratio of pickers to hunters is so high 75% of the boxes give you crap tips.
Picking just about any time of day outside peek hours, I can usually go for quite a while before seeing anything with a tip below 500 silver. I'm not making 1m/day... but I'm easily seeing more then double what's in the OP most days.