I have not sold on ebay since the PP thing became mandatory. I prefer the safety of Money Orders. I gotta say it scares me some, but as an honest user and buyer, I love PP. I can buy freely w/o fear of being ripped off. I have never made a false claim, nor would I ever try it, but it is nice to know they generally have a buyers back.
It bothers me to see something like this happen to a good seller though. Further more, another move I supported (no negative feeback for buyers) would keep him from alerting more sellers to this dirtbag buyers dishonest activities.
I do agree that PP and ebay have become link happy and impersonal. It's terribly frustrating to even get to the right link and most of the time, it's not helpful. I do have a phone number ebay gave me to call to talk to a live person and have even used it once. Not sure if this is still a case by case, as they told me not to share it when I first got it, saying not everyone got it.