It is my speculation that the entire purpose of the event was actually just a test.
I reported an exploit with the event that allowed you to repeatedly loot the same chest on day 1 and they never fixed that either.
Why?
It is my current belief that they didn’t try fixing anything for two reasons. The more obvious one is that the majority of the event took place during their holiday break and they didn’t have the manpower available.
But the second one is potentially more important - because the event itself was irrelevant, the results of the test were what mattered. If I am correct, they wanted to leave the event alone to keep collecting test results and fixing it was never a priority.
They said the reward loot is going to be made available by some other means, so the only thing lost by not getting to play the event is not getting to play the event.