Will this impact the willingness of sellers to reply to specific questions?
They may feel they'd rather not risk the automatic 5-star communication rating, even if it is NOT affected by questions and answers between buyer and seller (and it's by no means certain that it is not affected).
This is NOT good. I am NOT happy. I like communicating with my sellers - even a quick "Thank you - this is gorgeous!" or "Can you confirm the such-and-such is included" and so on.
The moment buyer initiated communication (question, or quick "thank you", etc), the automatic 5 star rating is void. It is just business as usual. Buyer get the chance to rate on communication, ebay will not interfere.
I see the automatic 5 star rating on communication as ebay's quick fix of buyer don't have to rate seller on communication for no communication transaction. No more no less.
For seller, they have to do these things to qualify:
specify same-day or 1-day handling time;
upload tracking information by the end of the next business day.
If the seller is not happy with receiving automatic 5 star, then just don't do it.
I still don't see what the problem here.
If you like to contact your seller, please do so. You have the chance to rate the seller on communication. That is business as usual.
If you don't like to contact the seller and hopefully seller also don't disturb you, you have one thing less to worry, you need not rate the seller for communication. This is void. The automatic 5 stars is there to make it easy to calculate the DSR without massive code changes.
Now you cannot be someone who don't want to contact seller and never wish seller to contact you, to rate on seller's communication. I really thought this is very fair to seller.