Hi Deb,
I don't know about being an old hand, but I thought I'd share my thoughts. I currently only use the Auctiva store front to keep costs down. I know that some of the other members here use eCrater as a free shop front site and seem to like it. Since I'm just getting started, I'm still in the process of building my store up so it's not active yet, but that is a way to have inventory items without a cost.
As far as counters go, I don't use the Sellathon counter. It's just an added cost for me. I use Andale/Vendio. The counters are free, they can be hidden from the buyer and they can be set to automatically populate into each new listing that you run.
Hope this helps.