The new system is better than the old one in at least one way: it helps everyone in the U.S.; before, you could only select major metropolitan areas, so it was useless for those not in/near any of those areas or on the fringe of the areas.

The new system is worse in the sense that now it is easy for the seller to fail to put his zip code in the auction-selling form. If he leaves out his zip code, his auctions won't show up in any zip code-distance search.

Robert