I’m kinda sick of using TSM tbh.
Just earlier today, I needed some leather. I had to scroll through 8 pages of 1c bids, and then further a few pages to find decently priced leather I needed for LW on my fresh alt.
Then I had to launch TSM, wait for an update, /reload and only then I could use AH.
It is not normal to use 3rd party apps/addons just to use basic features of the game.
I just use the TBC version of Auctioneer and it let’s me sort by whatever I want just in the standard Blizz auction search. No additional loading needed it’s just there. They do have other tabs as well for other stuff, but for what you’re asking, it’s really easy to use.
It started to do this for me by default a while ago. It will only do it if you have not sorted by any of the Rarity, Price, Name, Level, Etc. The way to reset it back to sorting by buyout price ( I think it might even do it by buyout price per item or something like that) is to relog. Then it will sort by the buyout price by default, but again - sorting by any of the criteria will break the sorting by buyout function.
Much like every Bethesda game, it’s been a way for the company to offload the work of designing a decent UI to the playerbase. At least we now have software to help us find and maintain our mod libraries, and enough lead time that mods don’t just break for a week on every major patch while mod writers work overtime to fix them.