As of today, I can no longer search eBay by the decade ...

[thecatspajamas]

Aside from lazy programmers, another possible reason for eBay dropping some search functionality is control.

Ebay likes to control what you see when you come on the site.

They changed the default search order a while back to "Best Match" which takes into account not just what you typed into the search window, but also which Ebay sellers they are giving bonuses and bumps in search rankings to this month. They give bumps in search rankings for being a Top Rated seller, offering Free Shipping, participating in the flavor-of-the-month promotion, etc. If you are using the wildcard and other search features to narrow down your search to just what you want to see, then the search "rankings" have little to no effect, and the value added to chasing eBay's Top Rated carrot is reduced.

For example, I have nearly all of my allowed saved searches used, with each one set up to eliminate all but a small range of items that closely match what I am looking for. If I run a search and it returns 200 items, I'll use all of the tools at my disposal to narrow that list down to just a handful that closely match what I'm looking for, and then save that search. When I get an e-mail from eBay with new matches for a search, it rarely has more than a dozen, so it doesn't matter if you're a Top Rated seller getting boosted to the top of my searches or a newbie showing up at the bottom. If there are only 12 results showing on the page, I give them all the same amount of attention, regardless of eBay's efforts to draw my attention to the top of the list. If you take away an important tool for narrowing down the list though, I may have to browse through 100 new results for that search, which means there is much more value in being at the top of that list than a list of 12.

And they HAVE to add value to being a Top Rated seller, or else they couldn't use that incentive to further control sellers by requiring them to have a 1-day turnaround on shipments and use eBay to print their shipping labels in order to maintain their Top Rated status. They add some value to the TR carrot by way of a discount in fees, but that costs them money. Bumping a seller up in Best Match search rankings costs them nothing.

Frankly, when they started requiring a 1-day turnaround for Top Rated status, I breathed a sigh of relief because it meant that I no longer felt like I needed to chase that carrot. Add a requirement that, for my situation, is an impossibility, and I'll just step out of the race. I miss the fee discount, but I don't miss trying to figure out who left me that low star score and put my Top Rated status in jeopardy this month.