" What do you expect the seller to tell you that the pictures won't?"

Plenty, You can't always see everything from the photos and I don't feel I as a buyer I should have to work extra hard to figure out the condtion of an item from an image for whatever reason that doesn't always tell whole story. A good ad gives you the condition in the Universal Fair, good, very good, Exc +- format that IMO everyone should use. Any flaws, wear etc should be described as well. Good photo's (And I have seen plenty of bad ones) facilitates this description to complete a good straight forward ad with no BS.

Ok so case and point because good photos can say alot but are often few and far between. Lets say you want to let the photos be your description when you are selling a used set of wheels I am ok with that but please take excellent photos of the sides of the rim to show brake wear especially. And a picture is not going to tell me if there is a hop in the rim and if the hubs turn ok. It needs to be a combination of both.

I am ok with Mint or NM that means excellent in my book. "great shape" is a little different what does that mean?

Rare I don't have a real problem with, but it is overused. and I realize rare doesn't always mean valuable