It definitely feels like a major oversight. I know a handful of people who were completely unaware that there is more to the event. It's also worrying that the game is celebrating its fifth anniversary but is apparently unable to handle server strain. That's the only real reason I can think of to justify the artificial gating. It's going to rub a lot of people the wrong way if the developers start talking about how amazing the anniversary event is during the upcoming Live Letter and things have not been resolved by that point.