I've never had an issue Gary. I don't think I would of gone after that sherman to begin with but like you said, not much to worry about with paypal protection. My guess is the seller was never a legit seller. Did a quick setup and put the auction up but no personal info for shipping or how to get in contact. Ebay probably recognized this and pulled the auction and of course they don't want us to know this can happen.
As always if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Could you check bidding history? Wonder if the seller had help or used an additional account to snipe bids over ya? Or even funnier...a r/c tanker that works at ebay tried to snag it and got ass punched then had to hide his embarrassment of the whole transaction.