Hi @ricarmic - this one is interesting!
It looks like if you're logged into Community you can't log out from your eBay account (at least not immediately). This is because the forums use your eBay id to validate your ability to post and read on the boards, so logging out straight from the boards would be a little like trying to turn your car off while it was in gear and on the interstate.
What you can do is hit the 'My eBay' link in the upper left hand corner and choose any of the options there. That will bring you back to 'eBay Proper' and the drop down links will come back for 'Hi Ron'. Your workaround (searching on eBay) would do the trick too!
Tyler,