Can I put certain text (tax info) on statements?
Yes! See the "STATEMENT_INFO" Internal Codes. Only thing is, it's limited to 255 chars (including HTML format codes), which goes fast when you are trying to communicate something as complex as tax implications.. here's one suggestion:
TAX STATEMENT
DONATED ITEMS - No goods or services were provided for donations. Valuation is the responsibility of the donor.
PURCHASED ITEMS - No tax deduction is allowed unless price exceeds fair value.
Can I change colors?
Sort of, but it may not be worth the effort. On the home page, you can make a 'notice' with special -1 position that will give you access to the HTML section. If you know what that is, you know it gives you full control over the look and feel of the page elements that have CSS style names, which includes most everything. If that's all greek to you, then no, you can't change colors. And this technique (which can also be used to hide certain elements on the front page) only applies to the home page, not to any other pages.
Can we do advance bidding?
Yes! See Online Bidding. Or, you can still have guests that can't come appoint their own friend to bid for them - have them ask for a paddle.
Can we make a list of 'favorite' items? I want to make a budget and plan what to focus on.
You can now, yes! See Favorites. Keep those good ideas coming!!
What about some kind of audit trail?
Yes! See Audit Trail. Not a very visible feature to end users, but certainly very important. Sometimes several people get conflicting info about an item - it's nice to know what the history of edits has been to figure out the whole story. I'm not aware of any other auction management systems that offer this useful feature.