Agreed. If the Wicket / Talzin model could be rolled out with a timeline slightly longer than a hard node farm (with 1 daily refresh) it would work well. I really like the events themselves.
I also liked the Chopper roll out. He was the login character and had a daily event all month. Maybe add in the wrinkle that you can refresh his daily event at an escalating cost. That way you could have him at 3 stars for free and anywhere from 3 to 7 stars through Crystal refreshes of the event. Of course, it would have to cost as much to refresh to 7 stars as it would to buy packs to get the new character to 7 stars.
Another idea would be to just throw them onto nodes occasionally. No event. They're just farmable from day 1. Canderous Ordo might be a good candidate for this. A solid looking support character that doesn't seem meta breaking.