I don't think the low number of points given out is a bug, it's a feature of live service games (which a lot of freemium games fit into). From someone else's comment elsewhere, "A "live service" game (LSG) is a game designed with the sole purpose of keeping people playing for as long as possible in the hopes that those players will pay for microtransactions. This is usually acomplished by making the game as "engaging" as possible. It is important to note that "engaging" is not the same thing as "fun" or even "enjoyable". "Engaging" just means that it has the ability to keep bringing the players back for more." That's what this event is about, keeping everything gated by time so we have to keep checking back.

The rarity of the items and how hard they are to get taps into Fear of Missing Out and Sunk Cost Fallacy, which are also traits of live service games and human psychology in general. The people who do get them might feel more loyalty and spend even more time, while the people who don't were likely not going to be the best resources for the game in the future anyway. OR they will work even harder for difficult goals next time. Either way, it's not necessarily a loss to the operators of the game if they lose people because of difficulty. They're just distilling their playerbase.

This is not to say that live service games are bad, or that's it's wrong to play them. For people who do have the time and/or resources, they can be very rewarding. But it does mean that players should be aware of what the game is intending and what it will be catering to, and this event is so far a good illustration of the shortcomings of the model and whether it's good to be involved for people who can't or won't completely invest in it at cost of other things.