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I just posted this comment on a blog post, the author was criticizing the way eBay is promoting the upcoming changes as a "fee decrease":

"Their promotion of this fee change is typical eBay speak - focusing on one aspect of the change and ignoring the other. Their viewpoint is that listing at FP30 used to be 35 cents - now basic store owners will get FP30 for 20 cents, and Premium store owners will get FP30 for 5 cents. That is, indeed, a fee decrease.

Of course their simultaneous decision to eliminate store inventory format, which essentially forces all store owners to switch their listings to FP30, is where the change is actually an increase. And of course they don't choose to promote that viewpoint.

Luckily it is fairly easy to do the math and figure out how to make the change work the best for your business. For me, I am upgrading to a premium store, and listing more items straight to fixed price with best offer, rather than running them at auction first. This allows me to pay basically the same amount as I was paying before, with the added benefit of all my items being in core search, which is a great benefit."

I would also add that so far having items at fixed price out in the core search is working pretty well - sales have been better than they were out of store inventory format. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens come April when all of my items move out to FP30!