I haven't had to replace much due to wear and tear.

If she is not tearing the place up, causing a ruckus, and pays, you have a great tenant.

Some of them even get to keep the pet fee which makes 0 sense since the animal is no extra work for them but additional wear and tear on my property and I could argue allowing pets opens the tenant pool making it easier for them to fill.  

it's additional wear and tear.

The main reason is at that age you should not need to completely tear out all of the electrical and plumbing.

To us beat up is one thing to section 8 its normal wear and tear so your dealing wth 1k to 3k turnovers darn near yearly.

Here are a couple "BEFORE" photos showing the kitchen and one of the clean bedrooms:Now here are a few "AFTER" photos showing parts of the same kitchen and bedroom (notice the large hole kicked in the cabinet and the bullet hole in the side of the fridge):Now I don't mind normal wear-and-tear or even a little above normal wear-and-tear (like holes in the drywall) because I'm pretty handy and most of that stuff is pretty easy/inexpensive for me to fix. 

Not that I don't want to make money, but I would gladly spend all day researching apartment buildings, whereas the thought of single-family homes bores me to tears.

You probably want to somehow prorate the cost of the new carpet to take into account the wear and tear, to be ironclad in court.  

Real people.When the net winners are using the money they "earned," I hope they think of the tears, sweat, frustration, sadness and hopelessness of the people who lost their money.