This isn't an allegation of any sort - just some interesting and terribly non-scientific stuff that others may be able to explain or interpret.
Regarding 'watchers' of items:
I have items that were sold a long time ago STILL with watchers. In one case 6 watchers. Don't no make no sense. Also with current items, I have many items that have been relisted around 3 times now with a 10 day re-list cycle, and every time around the 8th day watchers appear. They don't sell, but I have watchers who never seem to go away from the ended item. So I re-list and re-list expecting someone to buy NEXT time. I also had a watcher once within 30 seconds of listing. Now THAT is fast!
Regarding 'visits' of items:
I was explaining to someone the other day about how to get your site 'up' in the google rankings [i.e. how to get it from page 666 to page 1]. Just in the middle of the meeting suddenly I thought of eBay and the enormous number of 'visits' recorded that are not people wanting to buy but search bot visits to the page. I wonder what the search bot overhead is? Does it double the number, triple it etc. Been a while since I was knowledgeable about this stuff but it got me thinking.
I know, those issues are not life changing, but do impact our propensity to re-list ["it'll sell this time, I just KNOW it as I had lots of watchers and visits last listing"] - are we all being too quick to put on the happy goggles?