I saw glimpses of that first day on my way out the door to work, it was beautiful. People were arranging hunts, some people even came back to "give ultima another chance". But what happened is what has happened almost every event, something changed to make it really hard to obtain the key drop of the event. Which in turn makes it harder to ever trade for those items, because less of those exist in players hands.
It seems to stem from the fact that we have people who are highly efficient at hunts, who can pursue an item no matter how ridiculous the drop and likely get a couple. So every event the people who are housebound have a good acquisition rate for items. But those who work or have lots of classes can do nothing but a run here and there to help. And yes as im sure someone will point out that is what teams are for, but when all resources for hunting have to be put in one item, how is the team supposed to get the other things it needs aswell. Eventually people get frustrated and leave. It hasn't helped that the first half of the year was burdened by hacker problems, the giving and revoking of crack mode, nor does it help the whole situation with lee and his bun causing their drama storm on the way out, GM's have singlehandedly propped up this server and we even lost a few of them. We do have alot of new faces and they aren't gonna get very far if they cant get any drops. And we cant take them far if we aren't getting them either.
When proof of sonic team was dropping that was an example of a good balanced drop, it took tons of runs (like 50-60 seven minute runs) but it was accomplishable. Because it was accomplishable and not luck based our team banded together tighter than ever before and got one for every teammate that wanted/needed one (now very few of us can ever get a spread needle with hit, because the drop is a pain in the butt, same with psycho bridge) but the point is that item was huntable and gave the team something to do all Easter season. (btw that drop rate was 1/37, not 1/400+)
If the aim is to keep 20-70 people as the average playerbase count forever then they are accomplishing their goal. but it could be much higher If they were willing to let the players have more fun.
P.S. : personally i think those with jobs are the more likely ones to donate. seems silly to run them off with high drop rates. just my humble opinion though.