I've been on a few games where the contests are so luck based it's actually far, far worse than this. Not saying I love the idea of the luck, but if anyone is familiar with a certain avatar website that's been around for a long time, they have RIGs, random item generator, boxes. In those boxes you have a high chance of getting complete garbage, a lower chance of getting something decent, and extremely low chance of getting something pretty, and an outstandingly low chance of getting the 'main' prize, which was typically some sort of pet for your avatar.
The only way to get those boxes was to purchase them with real money. So while a lot of people are upset here, and I understand why, Kat is actually correct. The reason this event has remained random is because it will trigger people's frantic desire to get the prizes, and they'll spend money.
Or, it would do this, if they had balanced it a bit more. Right now, moon splinters are too expensive, there's not enough prize points to go around, and the prizes are on a timer.
Let's say that even if we didn't choose the prizes with our points, you had the regular, silver, and gold chests. Now let's say that all the prizes were in the chests, but you had to split up the chance of getting them and fractured apart that 100% even more.
I think that still would have made people happier. I think it also would increase income for Inno during event times. People are going to complain either way, but I'm just not opening any chests until the crystal unicorn comes around, and after that, I guess I'll just save my points and open everything else on the last day.