One of my biggest pet peeves are forms that make you enter your address information, including your "ZIP Code", before asking for your country. Extra annoyance points go to sites that then do a clunky page refresh after selecting a different country and having all of your previous address information disappear into the void.
there's simply no reason why they can't either a) parse the zip code differently based on country, or b) why country isn't listed first if there are uncrossable chasms. To do neither is simply laziness
