I've always assumed they picked closing times to make them less than attractive to bidders as a way to encourage aggressive "max" bidding by everybody who goes to sleep before midnight, figuring that the bidders who prefer to slug it out to the wire will stay up anyway. If your objective was simply to maximize the number of real-time/deadline bidders, you would end before 11:00 ET. But they (out of loyalty to consigners) are trying to get both: strong "max" bids from early-risers AND frantic extended-time bidding by the vampires.
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