I have not seen this... Cool. Historically though eBay has never put any effort into creating a user friendly experience. "San Dimas" may be a sign that they are wising up and starting to realize that maybe they do have things to fear. It begs to ask, what took so long? Fear? A feeling that any change would detour users or add a new learning curve their users could not handle? Was making it a desktop version a compromise, fear that it would scare their online users? (I have no idea of course)

PayPal kicked ass, why not Auctomatic? May not be the best comparison, but one thing paypal taught us is that the idea of "ownership of users" is very blurred.

You make a very good point, Auctomatic may really have their work cut out for them. But that's what makes it fun, right?