In my view, ebay is a big strategy game, with many competing forces. Sometimes I care a lot about winning (and other times it doesn't matter much); sometimes I know exactly what an item is worth (and other times, I have no idea at all); sometimes I want to look big and strong (other times I will hope to go unnnoticed); sometimes I will yield so that a friend can have a better shot at the piece (and sometimes it's more of "may the best man / high bidder win" [hello there, YY!!]); sometimes I can sit at the machine and snipe . . . etc., etc., etc.
All this just as a prelude to my view that much of ebay is about strategy . . . sometimes sniping is a part of that strategy / sometimes it isn't.
Sniping itself is not good or bad . . . it is simply a technique that can be used in a variety of situations, to achieve a variety of results . . . some of them good, some of them bad.
Jeff