Although it could be argued that it may be an attractive option for items of a lower value that don't really require Buyer Protection, to be honest I don't feel that there would be many buyers who would be willing to voluntarily surrender their right to be covered by the eBay Money Back guarantee, as if something went wrong and they felt as though they had no alternative but to open a case against the seller, then as a result of having given up their right to the eBay Buyer Protection Guarantee they wouldn't then have the option of being able to ask eBay to step in and help to resolve the matter if the seller was being uncooperative.
In view of the above I really can't see how eBay would be able to market this as being an attactive option to potential buyers, especially as it would result in the buyer having one less option available to him or her as to how to secure a refund if the transaction went bad.
To be honest I feel that it would be better if eBay were to abandon this new Buyer Protection Fee and revert back to the old way of doing things - ie: get rid of the added fee that the buyer has to pay at Checkout for the Buyer Protection Fee and go back to taking it from seller fees. As you say, buyers were always dealt with fairly before this new feature was rolled out across the site, so there is no justifiable reason for eBay to implement it. However, eBay will introduce anything that they think is likely to make them some extra money, even if it doesn't actually end up providing users with a better service as a result, so I doubt very much that eBay will subsequently look at this new measure at some point in the future and decide "We've made a complete and utter pig's ear of this one - let's just reinstate the old system", as they simply don't abolish changes to the site, no matter how badly thought out and unpopular they are.
