Not having programmed a queue myself, I can't claim that I know the details of how it works, but you and I are clearly reading the same post in different ways. I'll not-in-short restate that part of the post as I understand it, and if you have time to read the resulting wall of text, let me know if it makes sense.

When you go to log your character into the game, the request goes to the lobby servers (which, as I understand it, are in Japan). The lobby server runs a simple check to see if Kujata server (for instance) is currently closed off with a log-in restriction. It's not, so you don't get an error 1017. However, the lobby server is also currently in the process of sending out requests to many various servers, both 'locally' in Japan and across the Pacific in NA (Canada, I've heard?) to log players' characters into their worlds.

(Split for 1000 character restriction)