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I suspect a hapless patent troll would get far more than he bargained for after sending his C&D to these fellows.

Can you clarify this statement? It's not clear to me that this business model necessarily violates patents. It seems like they're just taking already well-established products and tweaking them. Then they're applying marketing techniques to get to the top of Amazon and Ebay searches...

It likely doesn't violate patents, but that has never stopped patent trolls.

This is actually true--improvement on a design is not patent infringement, and you can file your own patent for an improvement of someone else's design.

That having been said, patent trolls don't really use patent infringement, but the threat of an infringement suit. They send threatening letters and wait for their target to realize that the court battle costs more than paying the fee.

The article is from 2013. We've already waited and seen. They're still around, and no reports of them being sued.

Yeah... I guess you're right.