I used to start most of my auctions at $9.99 also until last fall. We chose prices we thought were reasonable based on similar items already listed on ebay and made enough money, when added to what we already had, to send my granddaughter on an 18 day overseas trip in June. Her language class planned a trip to Europe & luckily enough we were able to come up with the amount needed. What made it the easiest is we didn't have to pay for the whole thing at one time; there was a downpayment, then some due in October, November, January, March & final due in April.
Yes, the fees took more than I was used to paying but it was worth it. BIN pricing costs more & so do all the extras--more pictures, zooming & all that. Besides, there's a wider base of customers when using eBay compared to craigslist. I don't seem to have much luck with that.
My gripe with ebay is they usually seem to always side with buyers! All the rule changes don't make it much fun anymore. I don't know why the powers-that-be at ebay had to "fix" something that wasn't broken in the first place!