White salvage to order: a moral necessity

If true, it's a terrible misconception. All the NPC vendors represent is the theoretical minimum price for a good.

I say theoretical, because there are items for which the NPC price is not worth people's time to list things at, leading to things like people listing salvage for 5 inf. (Certainly less common now, but before the AE players stopped producing market salvage, it was very common.) Many people listed it at 5 not because they wanted to undercut anyone else, but because they just wanted to move it fast at any price at all. Getting vendor price for it wasn't worth the time that waiting to do so could spend binding up a market slot.