The problem was that the full breadth of the rewards on offer was poorly communicated to the point that there’s stuff I was completely unaware was on offer and missed for absolutely no other reason than that.
In particular I missed the armor type agnostic shadowpan transmog set. Which I didn’t realize was even a thing till after the event was over.
Meanwhile Blizzard really only talked about the pet and the mount you could get for completing the primary meta achievement.