Interesting theories that have been advanced by commenters on Cringely's blog: 1. eliminating wildcards reduces load on eBay's fragile infrastructure 2. somet

Interesting theories that have been advanced by commenters on Cringely's blog: 1. eliminating wildcards reduces load on eBay's fragile infrastructure 2. something equivalent to wildcards will become a paid service 3. without wildcards a misspelled item won't be found; relisted with the correct spelling, it'll command higher prices and hence bigger eBay fees 4. wildcards are being used by bots to compare prices, do surveys, etc. 5. "floral silk scarf" is better for data mining than "floral silk scar*"