I think you did the right thing. It is the sellers job to ensure that things are packed in the right way. He purposefully neglected to package the reel in the correct manner. Its just a bad business practice.
Also, if his livelihood is based off of ebay, he does a lot of transactions and one negative experience isn't going to hurt him.
Thanks for the heads up.
*Besides, I bet you paid for the shipping too. If that's the case, it is the sellers job to ship the item so that it arrives completely as described. In this case, it was simply luck that it happened to arrive unharmed.
(I realize sometimes things happen even when things are packaged correctly).
**This is all just my opinion and I have been burned as a buyer and seller on ebay so perhaps I am just a little jaded.