iwant....I get your drift...understand that your initial post came off as a whine "How can it take away approx 10% of my total price. This is an enormous amount compared to any other service business."
I understand your point is more like "eBay makes lots of money, why don't they re-invest some in marketing and improving the current site rather than investing in proven money losers like Skype and potential money losers like BillMeLater" (the former never made any sense and the timing of the later seems a little odd).
I fully agree, the amount spent on marketing is pitiful and the money they have spent hasn't been optimized.
I think your lack of success at stimulating a discussion is to a great extent due to the lack of clarity of the OP. I do tend to agree that serious discussion of the bigger issues rarely gets anywhere on these boards.
If I was a shareholder I'd be screaming for a dividend, my opinion is that eBay is no longer a growth story as it used to be. It is a serious money maker and there is always room for continued incremental growth, about time they shared a little with their investors instead of making blunders with their non-core investments.

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.