All the changes look everywhere from decent to sexy, with one huge exception.
I'm not seeing what's so unfair to the people being bid upon? If you meant that some people won't know if they're bid upon or not, how is that really different from everyone getting a bid of 1 at min and then you don't know if you get to make the cut?
What's unfair is that the community has zero idea how the auction is progressing. Knowing you got bid on, but not knowing if you made it into war, is a completely different kind of suspense than not knowing anything at all.
You have to look back to when the auction didn't exist to see it's hidden value. It's gotten both newbies and veterans involved in the community through public interaction. People have been elated at getting their first bid, campaigned and improved stats to get bids, discussed the auction in chat, made tables of bidding.
The auction is a community affair, which is not the kind of thing we should look to get rid of.
I might be a step behind mesa, because I don't even see the rationale for it, even from a gameplay perspective.