Ok, I'm at work and I'm bored, so forgive the diatribe...
I can understand your feelings about the fairness of bidding at the last second, but I don't agree. It's impossible to come up with a system that EVERYONE will think is "fair". How would you extend the end-time of the auction in a way that would be fair to everyone?
If you're going to extend it for the benefit of people who are sitting at their computer until the last minute, you also have to extend it for the benefit of people who might not be in front of their computers, but still have an interest in the auction (i.e. have placed an earlier bid). Regardless of what part of the world they may be in when they place their bid. So how long do you keep it open? 24-hours every time a bid is placed? How many extensions do you allow? Do you give the seller the option to extend it at will? So the auction ends up staying open indefinitely, as people nibble up the bid over the course of a month or so? Who is THAT fair to?
The system that eBay has set up is very clearly defined. It has a fixed start and end date, a fixed opening bid, and fixed bid increments. Any legitimate bid that is placed by a valid user during that time period is accepted, and the highest bid accepted before the end of the auction, wins the item. You've heard it before: It's not the LAST bid that wins, it's the HIGHEST.
In fact, if you think about it, the proxy system is specifically designed to PREVENT snipers from having an unfair advantage. It eliminates the last-second advantage by AUTOMATICALLY and INSTANTLY raising the two highest bids, until one of them passes its maximum.
People who complain that last-second bidding is unfair are not using the proxy bidding system correctly. If they place a proxy bid at the true maximum amount they're willing to pay, and they still get outbid, it doesn't matter WHEN the higher bid was placed. If they didn't place their true max bid in their proxy, then who's fault is it if they lose in the last five seconds?
Not mine! Snipe on!