What gets me me is that the exact same problem that so many of us absolutely detest still hasn't been dealt with by ebay.

At very least we need a search option to not show listings with multiple options. 

What you can do is whistle into the wind.

It will probably more satisfying and no less productive than dragging up NINE year old threads.

Avoid using the "lowest first" sort order entirely, as it has been rendered useless by sellers gaming the system, and because eBay often provides heavily filtered results by default in that sort.

Use the "highest first" sort instead. Set a price range and then use filters to limit the results to a reasonable number, then go to the end of the results and start scrolling up. You will still see price variation listings, but they will be sorted by the highest variation within your chosen range, rather than the lowest.

You’re right, eburtonlab — that’s a good method to use.