Well, it's true that I haven't had extensive experience with requests - 3 in total. The first was an INR in January, the buyer opened it a month after purchase so I didn't see much point in asking them to wait etc, and they were kinda rude with the message they sent, so I just refunded. I then got a message from eBay telling me the request won't count against me in determining my seller standing. A short time later, a defect appeared for an out of stock refund (which I hadn't done), then disappeared and I never got a defect related to the request.

The second request was an INAD, I followed the process via a return, paid for the postage label and processed the refund when I received the item back, I still have that defect.

The most recent was another INR. Again, I processed an immediate refund, and got the same message from eBay after the refund was issued, that it won't count against me- it's still early days since that one was opened and closed, so it is possible eBay will decide to give me a defect that sticks. (I'll update the thread in a couple of days if anyone would like to know).