I don't know their thinking behind it. However, I spend ALOT of time reading the store board and know that an awful lot of people opened stores with the new search feature, even some big powersellers that normally sold at just auction. Myabe they are thinking there is too many stores now, and want to try to cap it some. Although on the other hand, I know of about 12 people just on the store board alone that have closed their store in the past two weeks and alot of others are considering it if things don't pick up.
Do we ever understand Ebays way of thinking as to why they do most of the stuff they do? lol