I can't agree with that entirely.  I don't know plaruin's corporate structure but publicly traded corporations have a legal, ethical, and fiduciary responsibilities to put the interest of their shareholders first.  Some would say that privately held corporations have the same responsibilities to themselves.  So when you ask the question 'does it make business sense', if the answer is yes then you are essentially asking am I legally and ethically required to do this?  If they have hundreds of research papers and market research on human behavior discussing spending patterns and they choose to make less money than they could they could be sued they could be fined they could even possibly go to jail.  What they're doing is not fraud, cheating,  etc.  it's not just the right to maximize their profits it's their legal and ethical responsibility to shareholders and to themselves.

I do have a beef with Plarium's predatory practices, but I also know there is a way to play the game and there is a way to let the game play you. 

You, along with several key members of this forum, have been offering people advice on how to play the game, how to manage resources, how to extract the most value out of the champs they have, how to play the game more efficiently. 

What I'm tired of is people who don't want to hear it, don't want to learn, they let the game play them, and then complain about the game. I no longer feel sorry for them. 

OP - i am guessing you have been here 18 months from the avatar?

With that in mind i am surprised that this has surprised you.

The singular aim of mobile game companies is to seperate you from your cash, and getting you to waste resources before an event is one way to do that.

Given how often this has happened i am surprised it caught anyone out.

Personally i would say the items absoloutely are not worth the resources required to pick them up, i would ignore and just grab any free stuff you can while doing your normal events.