I think the strategy of reserves is to entice bidders with
 a low minimum to encourage "nibbling" to get the price 
higher.  Since you can't see the "reserve" from the big board you are more likely to click through to the auction 
page than if a high minimum is set.  Also, it is sometime 
easier to get 10 people to bid in $10 increments, say, that 
to get one person to take the first $100 bid in one chunk. 
But yes, some bidders are turned off by it.  It is the 
seller's right to do it, and the bidders right to bypass
those auctions.  

I saw a particular Miyazaki film cel on ebay lately (I 
forget whose).  I am not actively pursuing that particular movie, but I was thinking about bidding just for the heck--  the "big board" still showed a low price.  But when I
 opened that page I saw that it was a reserve auction and I
 decided to pass.  I think it deflated my "greed"-- that is the main lure of bidding, to try to get something cheaper than you normally would.  A reserve (or a high minimum for that matter) tells you that's not going to happen...  ~_~