What happens if ebay decides they don't like what they're doing, and shuts them out or makes it hard to connect?
There are a million reasons why Auctomatic shouldn't bother, but if they are a great team you'll never be able to convince them of that.
I suppose their plan is to have ebay buy them out, and given that they've spent so little, a nice seven figure sum might work for all parties.
Then again, how open is ebay to something like this? Other sites don't mind if you use their api to make enhancements, but is ebay one of them?