i would argue to takes more strategy to manage a fixed budget than to manage a soft one. If you don't have to think about it you can just spend more money, in your case you got penalized for not thinking ahead.. and really its an arbitrary line... so we move the line back a little bit the same fundamental problem will still exist... if i had just 1 dollar more I could have bid on this guy.. etc. etc. So although i understand your frustration, I think you agree there must be a line, and any arbitrary line is going fundamentally to have the same property that frustrated you in the first place. Essentially allowing debt simply resets what having zero dollars means.