This misses the philosophy which I have been told is behind craiglist's behavior: a sort of extreme localism. They want to try to keep craigslist informal, encourage bartering instead of sales, etc.

I think there are some insights buried in this philosophy, it's just that in this case craiglist is very wrong. If you actually want to understand the man and the organization (rather than just bad-mouth them) you need to address this issue.