IMO, a panic farm is when you dont know what is going to be needed until shortly before the event.
If the toon has been around a while, it's hard to call it a panic farm. If the characters are known, but the release time is not, it's still not really a panic farm. You know exactly what to focus on, not having time or resources to do so, is not really in the devs control. New players start all the time, they cant hold a release to make sure everyone gets them the second time around.
But that's just me.