Oh, he was winning the item the whole time until the end. He was one of those guys who places an early bid, then--as if on his guard against snipers--places a somewhat higher bid towards the end (around an hour before the end), and I nipped it with 8 secs to go. There'd only been one other bidder, whom he'd topped early on. Course he wouldn't know whether I'd sniped manually or by automatic pre-arranged snipe, but I think the common distaste for sniping applies to both methods.
Another time, I beat a bidder with a snipe on several items, who happened to be a guy I was also buying the same kind of stuff from, through his own website. He never responded any more to my emails about other stuff he was selling.... Again, probably paranoia...
Generally, in the class of items I bid for, I'm certain that these are savvy guys (they are hardened ebayers and "usual suspects" on these items, some have their own collector's websites) who understand sniping, and some of them do it occasionally. What always puzzles me is they don't use sniping more often, or not exclusively. Several guys will usually place an early bid, then snipe in addition. I wonder if there's some sort of ethic, among this group of collectors, that sniping is cheating or cutting in line or somehow not nice, unless you first place an early bid to sort of signal your interest, as if this were dictated by politeness as fair warning to other possible bidders, something like that....though I spose there must be a simpler explanation for this strategy, irrational as it seems. I doubt it's the trivial cost of AS sniping.