Lindex confusion

I have two questions. I will try to provide adequate explanation of the information I am looking for. This may be posted some place in a blog or previously distributed, but, I don't see explanation on the Lindex pages, and I don't think it's necessary for me to spend weeks searching through forums and blogs for answers that should be in a FAQ or explicitely posted.

Can you explain to me why the Lindex market data shows the best selling price of L$ to be higher than the best buying price of L$? If I'm selling L$, I want to sell as few L$ as possible to receive a dollar. If I am buying L$, I want to buy as many as possible for a single US$ But what's posted looks backward.
Daily Summary
Last Close Date 2006-08-17
Best buying rate: L$295 / US$1.00
Best selling rate: L$310 / US$1.00
Last trade: L$295 / US$1.00
Last close: L$297 / US$1.00
Change: -L$2 / US$1.00
Today's volume: L$12,312,217
Today's open: L$298 / US$1.00
Today's high: L$310 / US$1.00
Today's low: L$295 / US$1.00
Today's average: L$298.5723 / US$1.00
These figures look like the best rate that Linden Labs buys L$, not what us consumers buy them for. Ditto with sales.

Using that same snapshot of the Lindex, I attempted a "market" "buy" and a "sell" of 30,000 Lindens. It would appear that I was, in fact, buying lindens at L$295/US$1, and selling for L$309/US$1, as the cost of L$30,000 was 101.85, while the proceeds from L$30,000 was only 93.69. I understand the US$0.30 fee for buying, and the 3.5% fee for selling, but I don't understand why there is a "buy" at one rate, and a "sell" at a different rate? Can someone please explain that to me? I realize there are the transaction fees, but this looks like someone is pocketing the difference in what we buy and sell for. Using 3.5% selling fee, and flat US$0.30 buying fee, this was, in fact, buying $L295/US$1 and selling L$308/$US1. In a real market, the price is the same for buying and selling. I'm not real market savvy, nor am I an accountant or financial genious, but, I'd really like an explanation as to why the "market" rates are so much different.

After going through all this, I discovered an option to change my Lindex display from "Basic" to "Advanced" and found a "market sell" option, which used to be the standard, but seems to now be partially hidden. So that answered my third question.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Asking about this...

[UPDATE] Okay, here's what I found out, Gnash: questions like yours about being confused by LindeX get asked frequently and you're right--what you said in your first paragraph--that the info should be a lot easier to find.

So instead of answering each time it comes up...

hopefully not too long from now, we'll have solid documentation including an explanatory intro to LindeX and how it all works. It may take some time but wanted to let you know ahead.

In the meantime, you may want to ask on the Land and the Economy forum about strategies to using LindeX.