In auction theory there is a bizarre fact called the "revenue equivalence theorem," which basically says that every possible auction mechanism earns the same revenue on average unless it's a deliberately stupid mechanism (such as awarding the object completely at random). The reason this is true is that if you have an auction that normally earns X revenue, and then you change some particulars of your auction mechanism to try to get more revenue out of it, the bidders will adjust their bids accordingly and once they equilibrate you'll still only get X revenue.