Disagree.
Folk just had other priorities. The overall kill count was up somewhat from previous Halloween globals, but it's MEANT to be a challenge after all.
The first year results :-
30.10.2012 Oidche Shamhna I 67,559,336 Ruby
The 2nd year results :-
29.10.2013 Oidche Shamhna II 66,255,625 Ruby
The figures for last year werent on the wiki unfortunately, but as you can clearly see - the kill count WASN'T unattainable - we just chose to focus on other things this time around.
I see your point, but now they also changed the way of thinking, no one was thinking "will be hard, but we are close, c'mon community, we can do it", when people saw 75/90M everyone started to think "we can't do it, not with so much things going on, I'll not even bother and use my stamina somewhere else".