I don't think four days is an unreasonable amount of time to wait, so long as the buyer has confirmed with the seller prior to placing a bid/hitting the Buy It Now button that the seller is OK with waiting that long for the payment to come through. If the buyer has contacted the seller to explain his/her reasons why he/she might need some extra time to pay and the seller has agreed to wait, then fair enough. Where I don't think it's fair is when the buyer just assumes that the seller won't mind being kept waiting for payment for half a week or longer. Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, but to me that just seems like bad manners.
When I used to sell on eBay I sometimes had buyers commit to buying items I'd advertised for sale and then keep me waiting for up to a week without any communication, either prior to purchasing the item or before it, to ask if it would be OK to have a bit of extra time to pay. On occasions when buyers asked for some extra time to make payment I was quite happy to agree to an extra period of time to accommodate their requests (within reason), but it's when they didn't even bother to check first that I often felt as though they were taking the p*bleep*s.
With regards to the point you made in your second paragraph, I definitely feel that this was a good decision by eBay. eBay aren't known for making changes that benefit sellers, so for those who still sell on the platform I would imagine that this is a godsend when dealing with difficult buyers who don't appear to show any inclination towards actually wanting to pay for the item.
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