This. This is how most people seem to bid. Either they don't realize that ebay will up their bid for them or they want to think they will get it for as cheap as possible. Just look at bidding history and you will see it's true. They almost always make the lowest possible bid until they are the highest bidder. It makes no sense to do it this way. What they could end up doing is getting into a bidding war with someone else doing the same thing.
Now on the other hand, lets say that someone bids $1.00 on something early on in the listing. They check back every day and see if someone outbid them. Now you want it so you bid $20. The auction now sits at$1.25(or whatever) Then they see that and bid $1.50, then $1.75, then $2.00, then decide to give up when they hit $10.00. Well, if you had waited until the end(and provided no one else was bidding) then you could have won it for $1.25 instead of $10.50. This is why snipping works.
Having said that though, I tend to prefer Buy it now listings...so much less drama.