Things are a more than a bit different, I agree, and there is a distinct difference between selling and buying. If you list for, say, 10 days, your item is 10 days to the second from when you submit the listing, unless you schedule a listing to start later when it does default to 00 seconds. As a seller, you are told hours, minutes and seconds when your item will finish. I have been selling on ebay for 20 years and this has always been the case. Indeed, I always make a note of when my items finish to the second so I can follow the last few moments by refreshing the screen (as live updates have not appeared for years when viewing one of your own items).
What HAS changed I agree is that they do not now publish the "seconds" finish on a still live listing to prospective buyers - only when a listing has ended do they appear as in the screenshot above. This is a big nuisance, I absolutely agree! Maybe they have done that to try to control sniping?? Or maybe it is just sloppy coding - eminently possible given how ebay has gone over the last few years.
If you do get any reply or joy from ebay to your questions, do let us know here as things have certainly gone weird of late!