Ady
At the time of the original change there was a long thread, some raised objections, myself included. It was none the less decided that the format of the forums should change. The clearest part of the decision making in this regard, is that the change was made to save staff an overhead in terms of time and effort dealing with the occasional thread that spiraled out of control. That I can respect as the staff do the admin for free, why should they have to burden themselves in this way. There is the converse argument of course that the members pay for the service of the club and therefore why should this be their concern, I for one do not buy that one for one minute.
Despite being a naysayer, I have to say that the new format seems fairer to sellers, but perhaps marginally less fair to buyers and I really dont think it is worth the breath to argue it as the difference is very small. I havent bought anything from here since the change, and because of the kind of consumer I am probably never will again as the threads simply do not come to prevalence often enough to notice. I know some are far more comfortable with the way it is now also, so its swings and roundabouts, you cant please all of the people all of the time but in this case I think most people are unmoved and therefore any change is fine, and as said before it saves staff time which is another good thing.
I guess there is a 3rd way and that is to simply remove the ability to sell on the forum! That would quieten both sides of the debate!