well yes this was discused alot here ...
im playing
pe about 4 years now and all i can say about this resell thing is :
its the higher demand that influence the prices not the market manipulation or resellers . when i started
pe the player base was smaler but the drops of mid lvl items ( nem,2875,starkovs,... ) were alot more common . the omegaton 2875 used to sell for +60 now its +600 do you realy think this high price were done by the resellers . i know of hunters from the past that looted 4 or 5 nemsis shins in a week but the demand for those were smaler then it is now .
when you realy want to resell or market manipulate you need a very big amount of money! you have to lock away the bought stuff for weeks without knowing whether its a good busines in the end because a possible increased drop rate can screw your plan .
basicly what resellers do is trying to get there stuff under market price and then sell it for the market price or buying smal stack or materials to sell it later to a crafter ( but this is some kind of service ) .
about market manipulations : thats not good . but manipulation is biding with a second avater on the own stuff to get the prices higher . so ppl will think when checking pricefinder or the other auction sites the price is indeed higher .
and about those high end items ... imp mk2 , mod mercs and stuff ... do you realy think its in the hands of a reseller ... to me it seems the uber hunters own this stuff and use it of course .