Ok, not getting my question answered here? Seems to me this 60 second bid extension mechanism will guarantee that a proxy bidder will max out his max bid amount if competing with another proxy bidder with the same max bid amount. There is no mechanism in place to stop it (time or what ever). I appreciate that a manual bid may disrupt this situation.
60 second extension is a wonderful mechanism that eBay should adopt that makes things far more fair and avoids "sniping".
Lets give an example,
Item X is at 100 CAD and Bob places proxy bid at 200, item goes to 105 and Bob is in the lead
timer goes to 55 seconds and joe places a proxy bid at 200.
Since 200 == 200 the bid amount goes to 200 and Bob, as first bidder is in the lead still - this happens in an instant. Clock is reset to 60 seconds.
I.e. it does not matter whatever a proxy bid or regular bid is placed in the last 60 seconds or whatever it is winning or not - any bid will reset the clock to 60 seconds. 60 second rule does not change *bidding* it just resets the clock. Thus, for our bidding examples we can ignore 60 second rule as it does not do anything other then reset the clock.
On eBay rules do not change without 60 second rule regarding bidding - all happens is that people try to place 10 bids (proxy or not) in last 2 seconds - there are even companies / websites that will place a bid for you in the last second. Needless to say that is unfair as it favors these that are tech savvy or these that have faster internet connection. If I really want eBay item I do not "play" with it, I place large proxy bid on it say 30 seconds before it runs out and I see whatever someone beats me in the last second or not, from leaders position.