not sure if anyone here saw the dev alert so I'm going to quote it here...
Panagrammic
Bidblast Will Be Changing
We're going to let the current auctions play out, but we'll be making some changes to Bidblast. For purposes of discussion, we're thinking of the following changes:
raising the ticket price
requiring the user to have the gold when they bid
if you win, you automatically win -- that is, you don't have the option of refusing the auction
This will hopefully make the auctions resolve more quickly.
From this it would appear to be 'fair' they aren't going to interrupt the current auctions so they will likely run ntil their deadlines. The 2nd point is what a lot of people in this and other threads were complaining from the start so at least that will get fixed. And point 3 is that the user must buy the item (not sure how they plan to guarantee that a user has enough gold when the auction ends). The 1st point though just seems to be a scheme to increase the gold sink.
No mention on the 30s counter, but I think I understand what they intended to do with it. It was probably an idea to simulate how a live auction is performed where after the furious opening bidding finishes the auctioneer would start saying the phrase 'going once ... going twice .... sold' during which if a bid was made to interrupt him he would accept the bid then start the phrase over.