It takes so much away just to make an instrument easier to play, build up those finger muscles and harden those caluses!!!
I have to agree with luvdatuke, its sacralidge to give an instrument a low action, its like cutting your poor cats necessarys off... It takes so much away just to make an instrument easier to play, build up those finger muscles and harden those caluses!!!
[...] Maybe with better strings it may have been fine, I don't know.
I got a Makala Dolphin for my birthday, and the action was so high that the intonation was terrible. By the time you got to third fret on some strings, that it was pretty much unplayable, unless you were tone deaf. I cut down the nut slots with an old hacksaw blade, and sanded some off the saddle and now it is fine. It wasn't finger strength that was lacking before I fixed it. Maybe with better strings it may have been fine, I don't know.
My personal preference is for quite a low action at the nut, but medium high at the bridge saddle. In my experience it gives me the best combination of ease of playing and good intonation while not compromising too much on volume or tone.
High action at the nut can make fretted chords sound rough, and makes it easier to bend notes out of tune by uneven fretting pressure. Low action at the bridge can make a uke sound dull and sloppy.
IMO, action should always be set at the nut first. If that is done, it will often become clear that action at the saddle does not need to be changed.
Edit:
On a uke you don't need the action to be as low as you do on a mandolin, for example, which has significantly higher string tension and metal strings. High action on a mando is real torture.