Yeah okay, maybe sneaky is too strong a word...
I can see your point, that it's a way to test what they'll sell for with no risk of actually having to take less for it than you wanted.
But on the same note I've bid on one of those, instead of another that had a higher starting price, only to end up not winning it and also missing out on the other one... which is a huge annoyance to say the least.
Some sellers tell you in the auction what the reserve is... not many, but I've seen it. Bidders get the fun of bidding, but at the same time also knows what the bare minimum the item will sell for... I like that. In a regular auction you know the minimum it'll sell for is the starting bid, but no idea the max. With BIN you know the min and max. With reserve you don't know either, unless the seller tells you. With Offers you tell them what you will pay, and they accept or decline. You don't know what their min is, but then they don't know what your max is either. That's more like old school bartering to me, which sometimes is just cool. But if you're in the market for a set thing, and you have a set amount to spend, it can be annoying to not know whether bidding your max on an item is just going to end up being a waste of your time.... with a regular auction you know immediately, it'll tell you your max has been outbid, and you can move on. Raise your max, or to another auction. But with the Reserve ones you won't know until the thing ends whether you won... I'm just too impatient I suppose.