I hope they decide to reward the ship to more than just the top 100 this time. The amount of time spent battling and refreshing, as well as dealing with the RNG of it all. You should be getting better participation awards.
It wouldn't hurt the game to have the top 500 at least get the 4* base version, and then starting with top 100, award five, six, and seven star versions. That way your time spent and ally points used, actually gets you something. Shards/blueprints for a character/ship that will never be farmable isn't a reward, its just a tease.
It's not like this would be just handing it out either, there's well over a thousand people per shard, maybe more. So you would still need to use all your refreshes and spend a fair amount of ally points to reach that top 500. Who knows, maybe if people believe they have a shot at the character/ship we would see a lot more participation and competitive spirit.