FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out.
People grind, spend, grind, and then spend some more to beat back the FOMO. FOMO is baked into Plarium's game design stratgey.
The exact details of Leo's Hero Path were not released in advance, but an early draft of a Calendar for the entire TMNT Collab (including the fact that there would be a Hero's Path for Leo) was made public at the very beginning of TMNT, which gave people over 10 weeks to prepare for the Leo Path. It was not part of the official in-game news, but it was published on the game info page of the Google Play Store, and as soon as the CCs picked it up, it was taken down. Nothing was officially acknowledged immediatley and nothing was confirmed at all for over a month, and when they did acknowledge it, the party line was "all details are subject to change..."
My theory at the time was that it was a total eff up by a marketing intern....
No leak that substantial has ever happened before, nor do I expect to see it again.