I think making it easier to obtain is a good idea. There are some people (like myself) that just don't have the time to farm something for hours, and it's not like the normal events where you have to collect so many of something.
Maybe instead of having the regular imperials drop the hats, to make it feel more "event" like, they could drop something that could be turned in for the hat of your choice to an npc?
As I know it's unlikely, especially given how close to shutting things off they are, that we will get a serious change to the event, this may be an easy compromise?