Originally Posted by
Reinhardt_Azureheim
You are right that this competition isn't officially built into the game, but it is a tradition this community has adopted for a long time now and the devs have acknowledged it to the point where Naoki Yoshida even watches the livestreams himself to see how far everyone is coming along. You could consider it to be pretty much a fully established tradition at this point.
However, I agree that tomestones and by extension Crafted gear shouldn't be delayed - delaying Crafted gear + materials literally would defeat the point of the 1-week delay to begin with. Obtaining crafted gear shouldn't be part of the race, player skill, identifying mechanics and developing strategies should be.