Okay, let's call a spade a spade. Those that got the extra chest are happy, those that did not get the extra chest are not. Now what are the facts? This was a global event that got a lot of participation. Why? Because people had built up stamina, the chest rewards were the best that they have ever been, and rather than only getting one bonus chest for being in the top 100 you got two. So what is the purpose of the GEs? Now I think this depends on who you ask, and might be the source of some of the controversy.
For some, the purpose is to get people to burn their stamina on something other than leveling. On that front, the event was likely very successful, since the lowest kill count in the top 100 was 280k and the top was over 700k. The reason that I say likely is that, really we should divide those totals by 5, and in reality most of the people with the high kill counts probably used a distilled chest that had at least Conserve 400, or more likely 500. But still I think that it is fairly safe to assume that many people used more stamina for this event than they did for the previous ones. On this definition of a successful GE, the extra prize given for getting at least 15k makes some sense because it means that more people expended more than the minimal effort.
For others, the purpose is for the community to come together to try to achieve a common goal. In the case of all of the GEs so far, that has been to achieve the Ruby kill count. On that front, the GE was again a success because that goal was achieved by the second day. On this definition giving extra chests to the people with 15k+ makes little sense, because as a community we achieved the goal, and there was no reason after this mark had been reached for people to make any more kills (even the 5k). Obviously the reason that people did so, was for self-serving reasons, namely so that they would get the reward as well. But why would the community really care at that point how many creatures the person kills since the goal was achieved. So killing 5k or 15k, or 100k made absolutely no difference. The only way that this makes sense is if people made the implicit assumption that if we significantly exceeded the ruby level that BG would kick in an extra chest as a reward. Now extra kills mean something, but based on past experience this has usually involved something like getting one more tier worth of kills, and it has always been that everyone who qualified got the bonus reward because they contributed in their own way to the "community" accomplishment.
Well what about the reward for the top 100? Do we view this as a reward for those people who put in the greatest amount of effort, or is this a fun side competition in addition to the goal of achieving the community goal? Given the fact that there is always a jockeying for position on the last day, and the fact that we give a separate medal for achieving it, it seems like it is mainly the latter. As such it is like saying that in the Olympics we should make medals for those not in the top 3, and that these new medals count towards the country rankings for performance at the Games. One could do this, but it should be stated before the competition that this is what is going to happen.
Anyway, this post has gotten longer than intended, but in general, the event was a rousing success whatever the definition. It burned a lot of stamina, and the majority of the FS community got involved. But I think that it is fairly safe to assume that the insane kill count was more about individuals wanting to compete for the extra chests than it was about achieving something as a community, and I think that the major gripe is that there was a lack of information (which is a complaint that even those who are okay with the extra chests, have raised about other aspects of the game).