Agree with all of the above.

Not usually a conspiracy theorist, but the conclusion I keep coming back to is Amazon.  eBay has long been trying to grab Amazon's market share overseas, and obviously want to protect its market here before Amazon fully launch.  They launched the Australian website amazon.com.au in March.  There are some reports that they are expected to open warehouses or "fulfillment centres" later this year or next.

Amazon's motto is to be “Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company” (matches our new level of buyer-centric policies from eBay).  

Maybe the purpose of the Spring release is to clean out the dodgy sellers that discourage buyers from coming back.  Fair enough.  But there is alot of collateral damage.  However, if eBay perceives that small sellers aren't the money-spinners compared to the big sellers, and perhaps even negatively impact the sales of big sellers through their untrustworthy customer service (!), eBay would be glad.  It  follows then that the system is perfectly designed and balanced.

Sadly, the garage sale type stuff we all love, usually from small sellers, isn't welcome in the future vision for eBay.  It will have morphed into something else.