Interesting thoughts to be sure, but to my way of thinking waaaaay off base. Anyone who thinks this way is obviously an idiot. (Pardon me for being blunt)
With this way of thinking, the seller is only concerned with himself (MY profit, MY markup, etc) when it makes better business sense to be concerned with his customers. The most successful business all seem to do the same thing, namely figuring out what buyers want and then catering to that need. As a buyer, if I see something I'm interested in buying the first thought is almost without exception "how much is it??" If the answer is something vague like "tell me how much you are willing to pay for it and then I'll tell you if you can buy it"... I'm out of there fast.
With ebay I want to know up front if there is a possibility of buying the thing. My funds are not unlimited so I don't tolerate earmarking X amount of money for a week and finding out after the fact I had no chance to buy at my high bid. Too bad more sellers don't understand this.
The real genius sellers (imho) are the ones who list their reserve price in the item description. Whenever I see this I send them an email and thank them.
Thank you and best wishes,
BDS