Smart move.
How so?
Looking at the interest, pretty sure they would have got a lot more with an auction ... unless giving up profits for the taking is a "smart move" for some reason I'm not getting.
Maybe, maybe not. You would have to ask Ms. Vranova. Auctions are more complicated, take time and there is a time value to money. There is no auction site that takes payment by bitcoin so Trezor would have to hold an in house auction. They did not choose to do so.