I don't know if this has been suggested but what about adding automated bidding?  There are hundreds of players I am interested in bidding on but know I won't be at the computer at that time (3:00 AM, etc.).  Also, some of the bidding wars can take a very long time at $1000 increments.  Why not set it up to automatically renew your bid up to a certain preset level.  
For instance, I would see a player I liked currently at $10,000 and set it to bid in $1000 increments with an upper limit of $100,000.  That way I would be assured that I would get a chance at landing the player but not at a price I was not happy with.