A couple of yrs ago, I was watching an auction on 
Ebay for a handful of very rare and expensive 
SNES games.  The Auction was only titled "4 SNES 
Games" so VERY few people were looking @ it.  
There was only a day and a half left, and the 
auction was only @ $7.50 - I was kinda excited 
(though I know acutions sky rocket in the last 
mins)  b/c I was willing to pay upwards of $90-
$100 dollars for this set of games.  The seller 
ended the auction early and sold to the highest 
bidder... the bidder then a month later came on 
and sold those games for over $40 each (the one 
in the bunch I wanted sold for 90 itself).  I 
realize the seller was quite smart to be able to 
by for whatever cheap price, then resell for big 
profits... BUT.....

IMO - The only reason to end an auction early is 
if no one had bid on the item, and you decide 
that you no longer wish to sell the item.  If you 
have bids on it, then don't end early.  If an 
offer is given, then tell the person to bid on 
the item, and that they might get it cheaper... 
(even if the person offering is the highest 
bidder @ the time).  Again IMO it's only fair to 
the people watching and planning on bidding on 
the item... (or the winning bidder at the time) 
that you keep the auction going until the end.

Of course you can see where this opinion stems 
from personal experience... and of course it is 
just my opinion, I've had expereince in this area 
so I thought I would add my 2 cents.  =)

****Drops her two cents into the opinion jar on 
the way out****