I don’t think I get punished for using smart pricing as far as where I end up in the search results. But what I have noticed is, when my pricing isn’t within a few dollars of the smart price, I lose the "motivational notes " on my posting like “20 other people are looking at this place for these nights,” or “this is a rare find. This place is usually booked.” As best I can tell, you only get those prompts when you’re close to the smart price.
Perhaps I’m missing something here but I don’t get it. My cutoff for IBs is 12 md but I can still take last minute bookings through an Enquiry. For example, a couple found themselves stranded at the Port at 6 pm, sent me a message asking if we could take them in for the night, and were gratefully here less than an hour later. Thus a mechanism does exist to take short notice bookings, but it’s not mandatory on the host like an IB. I’m left uncertain of what it is you are asking about, except the lack of a message but I definitely know that you are angry about something!