Setting values is a complete waste of time imo. 15 minutes in your values are out the window. Do get to know the suggested values for whatever site you are using and look for bargains (lots of people will use those values).
Do a crapload of practice drafts on espn or yahoo and get a feel for it. Get an idea for ranges players go in and setup tiers.
Auctions are WAY more fun than regular taking turns.
I've been playing auction leagues for over 10 years now. Never once have they come anywhere near what calculations say they "should" go (as a note, I've found Draft Dominator's numbers to be particularly bad as they have far too steep a drop-off from the top talent). Not to say that it's not worth making some notations of how much a certain position is "worth," but expect the values to shift during the actual auction itself.
The best method I've found for assigning players is to set the baseline for VBD at the first non-$1 player at each position (which is admittedly much harder without historical information, and will typically be further down the depth chart than most expert's rankings predict since different owners often have different opinions on how much a low-end player is worth). Add up all the VBD of all the non-$1 players and divide by the amount of "free" money (i.e. the extra money left after the $1 minimum bid for players is removed). It's not perfect, but it will give you an idea of the relative value of each player.
Keep in mind that when you're auctioning, you are not trying to necessarily get bargains compared to your calculated value, but bargains compared to the other owners in your league. If everyone overpays for a position, sometimes you have to too to remain competitive. The key is to overpay less than the others do.
I think I understand what you're saying but isn't this...wrong?
The point being if you've done your calculations and have priced out VBD "points" and everyone overpays for the big studs in the space then you're going to end up winning via depth, right? I mean, this is predicated on your projections-to-VBD being correct and that you've chosen the proper weight method of evaluating starting players (as opposed to giving equal weight to backup points), but as long as you're confident in your projections and math you kind of will win out (albeit on paper) based on depth.
The problem is that depth doesn't win games when you can only start a limited number per position. Sure, you'll be more injury-resistant than most other teams, and you have a greater chance of finding a breakout player if you have more flyers, but if you're constantly starting a trio of WR3's versus teams starting a WR1, WR2 and WR4/5, you're probably going to lose every week without a lot of luck. Even with league with active trading, it's very hard to find owners willing to trade their starters for depth-level players, especially if there's good talent available on the waiver wire as well. (I suppose this could be considered part of the "studs and duds" versus "value" debate, but experience has shown me that going solely on value without any studs is a recipe for playing in the Toilet Bowl.)
Speaking from experience, the times that I stuck most closely to my calculated values I ended up with money left over at the end of the auction. Sure, I had my pick of the sleepers at the end of the auction, but I always regretted not spending that extra money on getting higher-quality players, even if their prices were above what I thought they were worth based on VBD. And inevitably, those teams fared rather poorly compared to years where I was more willing to "overpay" slightly at some of the top positions.
As an aside, part of the problem with values based on VBD is that every owner ranks players differently unless they're all using the same source for their projections. So while the top few players are generally consistent, the variability in the second and third tiers tends to flatten out the price curve as owners "reach" (based on your projections) for players they have ranked higher. This tends to make the drop-off in price more gradual than most calculated methods say it "should" go, based on VBD, and so you don't start getting the true value players until close to the backup-level talent.
