I understand the maximum bid idea, but I think you misunderstand my intent.
Here's my situation: during the day I often browse ebay and set up snipes, but I don't place my "real" maximum bid because I don't want to give it much thought. Later in the day (after work) I will come back and change that bid to my "real" maximum bid. So, for that first bid placement, I just need to enter the lowest possible bid it will allow to have it appear on the "My Snipes" page (if you could just leave the $1 as is and have it appear on the snipes page with an automatic "bid too low" notice, that would be fine too). As it stands, I usually have to go back to the ebay page and recheck the price (because I usually forget it) and enter it into that field. Not a big deal, obviously, but I find myself doing it on a regular basis. However, if AS were to incorporate my suggestion, it would essentially be 1-click sniping using the AS browser program: I surf to the auction I want to snipe, have my defaults set, hit the "Snipe" icon in the toolbar, and the snipe is pretty much set. I can then go back later when I have more time, review the bid, look at the bidders (and their bidding histories), look at similar items, etc. and place enter my "real" bid.
Of course, I could also just put in $1000 for every snipe knowing that will almost always go over the minimum I need to bid. But, this is the suggestions forum, so why not make one? :-)