A few comments:
(1) To the guy who said "I suspect eBay can never change anything so fundamental to their process - too much upset for the community. ," that is totally wrong. eBay is changing virtually everything. They have loads of people who have nothing better to do than tinker on everything to try to squeeze the last dollar out of the world. Last night I was looking at some eBay discussion boards. Two things surprised me.

For one thing, eBay is going from category to category implementing "EXTENDED buy it now"auctions. If you bid "Buy It Now," you won't win (and your bid is thrown out) until the bidding reaches a certain level, like half or two-thirds of the buy-itinow price.

The second change (not implemented yet) has to do with a survey they are doing to see how happy buyers will be if seller positive feedback will AUTOMATICALLY be given (for from the seller) after the buyer makes the payment. You might ask how will eBay know that? They don't say, but it is probably designed to draw buyers into PayPal (which is owned by eBay) so eBay will know when the payment is made and so the buyer will be assured of positive feedback. Crazy scheme, but they are working on it. They are afraid of BidPay, which is better than PayPal.

(2) As a buyer I always snipe by software. I look as the items are placed on eBay, then decide what to bid, put it into the machines, and forget it. No one can accuse me of bidding against them because I place my software machine bid early, AND SO I DON'T KNOW WHO IS BIDDING! It is dumb to bid early. One reason is that the bids will alert a potential buyer to the auction, and so he will start doing research, and........

Robert

auction ending soon:
H.C.Edwards advertising poker chip:inlaid, dice,1950's

Item number: 150182718554

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=150182718554