My handling time is 5 days, which I set to fatten out the estimate a bit. Are you saying that it doesn't do that any more? Should I post within 24 hours like I normally do but not mark as posted for a few days? I know that if I post with tracking within my handling time, if someone defects me for postage time, eBay will remove it (twice so far, one because I posted within 30 minutes of sale and payment), so I don't need to worry about that.

OP, my sales didn't seem to be affected too much from when I changed from a 1 day handling time to 5 days. I run auctions though, so not sure if that makes a difference or not. I had a carp couple of weeks recently, but the last few days things have got a move on again.