Was never able to complete the Grim Rewards Event

I know the event is over, but issues with tasks not completing remained an problem for me the entire time. I am mostly a builder, so I wasn't too enthused about a game play challenge, but actually found myself enjoying it until I couldn't get quests to complete despite having caught the stupid angel fish about 8 times with several different characters. There were some rewards I was really keen on getting and I missed out on because the game wasn't working properly. (Yes I removed all mods while playing this event after realizing some where bugging the first few gardening steps.) 

I can understand EA not wanting to just give everyone these items...but could anything be done? Maybe make the challenges ongoing to be picked up whenever players want access to the new content. I'm really not a fan of this "you snooze you lose" rewards. I wasn't snoozing, I was trying really hard actually and still missed out. I know a lot of people had issues at the beginning, but was I just unlucky that things didn't resolve or were there other people out there having the same issues clean up until the end of the event?

Thanks.