At the San Antonio Board Gamers increasingly out of control game session I finally tried Vegas Showdown. I enjoyed it. You have Amun-Re style auctions, where you keep going until each player has something, but with a fallback — you can always take a VP. The 'bigger' items that don't sell have their minimum bid fall. Each player also has a "Princes of Florence" style mat where they have to arrange their purchases, which further differentiates what players will want as the game progresses. And you have a deck of random events (that mainly give each player the same options, although some swing the game).
Auction - Placement - Event - Income - Repeat. It works.
The economic engine purrs instead of roaring. Compare with St. Pete. If you buy an income producer (a worker), it pays off in a turn or two. In Vegas it takes 5+ turns to recoup costs. This makes hoarding money much more important. You can win with less income. Any VP purchases score once, and then perhaps have some end-of-game scoring effects (for filling up your placemat, or connecting sides, or forming patterns). So no runaway "Mistress of Ceremonies" issues.
I've seen everything, but it's carefully assembled. I may pick this up.
Update: I decided to place an order, and I'm getting a copy.