Shifting patterns in bidding wars?

Disclaimer: These are just my personal observations, not a proclamation of how it's going for everybody.

I feel like in the last 3 years there's been a change in how 'bid wars' kick off. Now (in my selling categories at least) the items that end in bidding wars not only have a large number of watchers but also at least 2 bids placed by day 4 of a 7 or 10 day auction. Meanwhile the old way - that is - 0 bids and many watchers until the very last day, now signals the auction will end with 3 small bids at most. Has anyone noticed similar changes?

I only made this post after a full year of closely watching my auctions, this has been a fairly clear pattern for my stuff.