To be fair to Valuespro/Mike, I think he's just frustrated at the delay of a feature that is very important to him, was promised some time ago, and has still not been delivered. I understand the frustration - I really do.
Mike, I wasn't being critical, just voicing my opinion based upon my time here with Auctiva. Despite my "Registered" date on this username, I have actually been with Auctiva since August 2005, so I have at least as much time put in here as you do.
I remember the promises of the "Phase II" release. I think the misunderstanding comes in because Auctiva has (apparently) shifted it's strategy with new feature releases. In the past, mass release of many new features had caused near disastrous effects on the usability of the site. Because of that, they seem to be trickling new features out every other month or so. This is fine with me, really, because it gives the support people time to get those new features tweaked and working right in a more efficient fashion, rather than have to worry about fixing many glitches with a major release.
The problem is, obviously, that some features that people deem very important (in your case, inventory), may be delayed as other features are being implemented. This sucks, I understand, but I don't really see any way around this. I think it's a good strategy by Auctiva, because it gives the customer the feeling that the service is constantly being updated with new features, and the problems that do come up from time to time are fixed relatively quickly.
I'm not one of the folks that believes that we have no right to complain because the service is "free", either. Of course, we do pay for it (unless you don't offer insurance), the fees are just structured a bit differently. However, I'm willing to cut Auctiva a little slack, because I do believe they're doing the best they can with the resources they currently have. I trust that they'll have the promised features up and running soon, but I understand that delays are unavoidable, sometimes.