You're sorta correct, but what it really is, is eBay's way of conning small sellers out of their TRS status. eBay would rather have such status be only for the bigger volume sellers. eBay is doing its best to weed out small sellers in general, and rout them off eBay. It doesn't want small and inexpensive items en masse, clogging up their server space.
The reality is that this America, and what the majority of folks here on eBay do not want, is for the pages to be clogged up with counterfeit, cheap junk that is from overseas. That and fraudulent sellers and their false listings - also most of which is from overseas.
eBay has had this scan rule in place to not necessarily save money on promotions by reducing the number it gives out, but to basically undercut the little guy and throw him/her under a bus - get them to below 95% so that such sellers lose that metric when it comes to how prioritized their listings are in a buyer search result. Having TRS means having more visibility, so you know. Having this stupid scan rule also creates more customer service jobs.
I've been a TRS for over five years and for the majority of that time, I have been running a printerless commerce set up (from my end). I don't use eBay's postage for two reasons: It's hardly worth the extra time and hassle (and cartridge ink), given the volume I do as a seller, and second of all, I prefer handwritten labels and *face value* postage for every package - it gives the buyer more privacy and affords them more transparency insofar as what their package actually costs to get to them.
For me, eBay is more of a hobby than a business, honestly.
