Definitely an attempt to immediately raise prices on the intial bids. This means the $60 win will likely be more rare. To even be in the game on a higher profile name, you have to be within 20% of what you think the high bidder may bid, and it's not a proxy bid, but your starting bid.
Seems to me they are trying to get people to put in $100 plus starting bids to insure they are in the game for the final bid in case someone else bids more.
I won't buy in. My starting bids will still be the $60 minimum, so if you wan't to keep me out of the pool auctions start your bids at $80+ and make pool rich with the guaranteed extra $20 per name.