How about roleplaying that in this universe, you can see people's names above their head? Or am I breaking the third wall? Is it not roleplaying to play like you would if play here if the rules in the world were different? For example, if on Earth everyone's names were displayed above their heads in text, we would be able to walk up to a stranger and greet them by name.
Or is roleplaying trying to keep your current "real world" customs in the game, and bending the game world to match reality? Do you want a reality based game?
As for the auctioneer, that's just a text chat for sharing items, right? So all the characters in the virtual world of, uh, what's it called again?, PlaneShift, have ESP. Nice and simple.
If you're going to insist on the environment of the game matching your current reality, then perhaps we should do away with the auctioneer entirely?