Buyout and base value have nothing to do with each other, at least where the AH is concerned. Sooner new people understand that, the better.
Reminds me of a few days ago -- the usual marketplace trade spam was flying by and I was ignoring it...but I happened to see a "+1 acid dwarven axe of pure good 18k gold" sandwiched in there among some other junk.
So I messaged the guy...told him that while the rest of his stuff wasn't worth anything, that axe could be sold for 20x as much, easy. He told me I was crazy as the "value" is just above what he is asking and to **** off unless I was wanting to buy something (
). So I bought it for 18k gold, tossed it on the AH for a reasonable 40k plat, regretted trying to help a rude noob and collected the sold mail a little while later
Most people that have been playing awhile don't bother keeping normal twink items cluttering up bank slots. So when they roll new alts, they go shopping with a fat wallet. Thats why prices are what they are.