I'm not writing eBay off, per say, I am just going to broaden my options when selling again. The item was marked as posted the same day I sent it, and I added the tracking number the very next day. This is all within 2 days of the buyer paying for the item.

According to eBay, I need over 25 selling transactions for the waiting period to be nullified. Not sure I'm willing to go through this ~10-15 times again.