Firstly, Ebay's design and absence of any AJAX-enablement. I'm tempted to respond "Yes? So?". What is there works and is fairly fast. It doesn't need to change just to change. OTOH, they almost own the space: that means the competition isn't close enough for them to feel the pressure to change. Come some upstart who figures out how to do online auctions in a new and more effective way, and only then will Ebay feel threatened and do some serious upgrading.

The item of fees for selling is highly controversial. It even made newspaper news here in Sydney. They say they want to encourage casual auctions rather than organised 'stores'. I think that's not a bad idea, but it creates a problem they can't solve: if they want to drive the stores completely away without simply kicking them out, then they have to have somewhere to go to. And they currently don't.

PayPal? Well, Ebay/PayPal integration is interesting. I recently used PayPal for some spending and noticed it had better integration with Australian banks, now, than it had a few years ago. But I didn't use that: I got paid for something via PayPal precisely because I could use PayPal to purchase things on Ebay. :-/ That said, it's obvious that if Ebay could say 'all payments must be made with PayPal' they would. But they can't because it would get them into too much bother.

In the meantme, bring on Google Auctions! :-)

Wade.