Human psychology doesn't work that way, unfortunately - the most a person is willing to pay is generally not knowable ahead of time.

Having the "Three More Hours" feature implemented wouldn't effect the strategy of putting your highest bid in. You could still win with proxy bidding the same way you always have been able to before.

All the feature would do would kill the last-minute folks. Nothing more, nothing less.

All of the "bid and forget it" folks (i envy your discipline) still win if you value it more than the next guy.

That's one way, but it doesn't approximate real world "bidding".

I definitely think eBay would be better off with this feature implemented

Ebay does this bidding for you. Anytime you enter an auction, the price you are willing to pay should be independent of how everyone else in the room values the object. If your willingness to pay is a function of the last bid, then you probably should stick to fixed price sales.

I don't disagree. The best approach is to always put your maximum bid in. But human nature plays a big part in auctions, and I think ebay should note this.

It seems that most people, given 3 hours to think about and consider the regret they would feel if they didn't get what they are bidding on, would usually convince themselves to skip a coffee and add another five dollars to their bid.

you are totally right, but humans are far from rational.

"but it doesn't approximate real world "bidding"."

At the last few auctions I've been at (Mostly Used Computer Equipment) - the people who purchased real volume showed up with a Item List and Price, and just kept holding up their paddle until their price was hit, and then they pulled it down. They didn't really care that someone managed to purchase that Dell Latitude 610 for $110 instead of their last bid of $105. They were done at $105.

So, in some cases, eBay actually does precisely mirror real world bidding.