Hello -- !!
I agree ebay must be doing something differently of late. I've won a couple hundred snipes using a 3 second lead time but lost a real good one this afternoon that ended at 1:30pm... Monday!
Looking over my snipes lost page there have been half dozen or so "too late" reports in the last couple weeks.
3 sec. was working just fine for me this past year until now. (although I've noticed in bid histories that most of my snipes were placed at 5 sec before closing, even with the 3 sec lead)
Thats my 11 cents worth..
Thank you and best wishes,
BDS