Brian, you asked "And wouldn't the final bid sometimes get out of hand because of two snipers?"

To that I can say with assurance that the more the sniping, the less bids get out of hand. There is less of a bidding frezy/competition; the final hammer price will be less. That is because the bidders who use sniping programs calmly decide on their bids hours or days before the end of the auction. Most will then ignore the aution till it is over. They don't look at other bids, so there is no frenzy. (Of course, there could be heavy bidding in the final seconds if a lot of bidders use the sniping programs. But the point I am making here is that overall there will be lower bids.)

Robert