My preview said it would become a Veteran 2/8 [Mantle of the Autumn Blaze], which would have been item level 483. It did not turn into that, as stated.
TLDR:
This is/was a known bug that both CS and the Devs became aware of; the Devs fixed the bug (which implies and confirms it was not working as intended); but then determined that anyone that was affected by it is out of luck. As the agent for my ticked said, they were not given the go ahead to replace/restore the affected items.
Specifically, my CS rep said this:
To give you some background, the primary role of a game master is to provide assistance when something in World of Warcraft isn’t working as the developers intended it to. We can assist when there is a verified instance of a bug or other problem and the developers have given us an approved workaround. Otherwise, it is their decision whether or not to provide compensation to players who experienced a bug on a communitywide basis, rather than a case by case basis through Customer Support.
In this case, the bug was fixed for new items. Customer Support was not given the go-ahead to assist with replacing these items. While I understand that this means that you did lose out on a catalyst charge and a veteran item, I do hope that you are able to replace those items quickly.
Also, in my CS ticket, after being told I was out of luck, it ended a request to leave some feedback.
Here’s my feedback:
For Blizzard to know it was not working as intended, enough so that they fixed the issue, but then chose not to restore items, nor to provide compensation, is a customer service failure. A [Renascent Awakening] at best, puts most people back a full week; others three weeks, if the source item was from an awakened raid; and longer still for people cursed with bad RNG rolls; or yet even longer still if the item was from a TW raid.
If the Devs fixed something, and they know it had a negative effect on people’s experience, they should do the right thing, and approve restores/compensation.
Please see this as a call to action:
The Devs, by their decision, can still allow this issue to be resolved satisfactorily if they chose to. Whomever else who has had this issue. Please, provide your feedback. For anyone else that reads this, and thinks if the Devs knew it was a bug; and feel that if they broke things, they should restore them. Please likewise share your feedback.
Ask what the criteria is to allow restores?
[ X ] Not working as intended?
[ X ] Did development fix code?
[ X ] Is the number of people actually impacted greater than zero?
Should be an easy yes then.
Perhaps if enough people indicate that this is undesired behavior, they may change their mind on this specific issue, and/or prevent issues like this from happening in the future.