Items for sale here and on ebay without remotes....

Seems to me, if the thief can't find the remote, it was probably already lost. 

Folks are stealing my remote around here all the time. Daily!

But seriously, thinking like a thief, if I am stealing, components hooked up, it's likely easy to find the remote pile, and I'm taking that too. OR, I think what happens a lot, the component is in a box or packaged ready, in which case, the remote is there with it. 

And come to think of it, I bet in actual reality, people maybe steal more remotes than equipment. 

So...no...I don't think missing remote is any indication of a component being stolen. 

  I had a burglary in 1987. The burglars must have been in a hurry and didn't bother to take the time to take apart an entire rack of McIntosh separate components. They did steal the remote control for my McIntosh MCD 7000 compact disk player. I bought a new remote from Mac for $100. Burglars also stole my McIntosh XR-16 loudspeakers  (which I never did like). With the insurance money I bought a new pair of Apogee Duetta II loudspeakers, which still sound glorious to this day. 

Yes theft is likely very rare in these listings.  They break, folks lose them, 2nd or 3rd owner, Goodwill, etc......

I bought 6 used McIntosh pieces in the last 9 months and even though they came with the remotes, I ordered all new ones.  I get skived by using  used remotes.  I have seen people scratching their junk with the remote plus worse, why would I want to touch it?