My favorite part of the e-mail from eBay was when they explained how to adjust your Saved Searches to account for the change. In every example they gave, the search string you had to type in was considerably longer than the one with the *, and still didn't account for spelling errors by sellers.
The reality is, it's pure laziness on the part of eBay's programmers, with eBay's usual "this is for the better of us all" assurances smeared on top. A novice user won't be confused by using wildcards, because they won't use wildcards. Anyone with half a brain can see that removing functionality from the search features does not improve the user's experience.
How long do you think it will be before a third-party site like Goofbay will offer up an eBay search function that still allows wildcards?
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