I so understand how you feel, and I don't know how long you've been playing, but I joined somewhere around the first monorail event. Think I had been playing a couple months or something and I had a bear of a time getting through it. I just accepted that I wasn't going to get "all" the prizes and enjoyed the design part of the game. By the end of the event I had gotten enough that I had the stations and enough rail to put them together. I also had the recycle buildings but didn't get the rail yard. Was totally bummed because that meant I also couldn't create more rails (actually at the time I didn't realize the rail yard continued to make tracks till I saw other towns with what appeared to be miles of it.)
The next few events I also didn't get the final prizes, by then I was getting the first act final prize but not second- then first and second but not third. See where I'm going with this? Eventually I built up enough characters and collected donuts along the way to get further, now I can usually get all the prizes by the end (but not always)
The fun is in playing with what I have and enjoying the silliness of it all. If it's only about winning everything all the time then that's a shame and sure that can't be any fun. Yes, I totally envy the towns that have cool premium characters and buildings I can't just buy, but one by one I'm collecting the ones I want and lovin' designing and redesigning my town.
Probably doesn't help you worth a crap but this is such a better game then most and hope you enjoy it more as you build up.