And here, I thought I was alone in all this!! Thank you, The_Cow_God! I'm in pretty much the same boat; I work a full-time job, don't visit the forums or home page much, and have a limited time to spend in-game due to work and family responsibilities. I agree with everything here, and would like to add that, having experienced an event in the not-too-distant past where the homepage said the event was due to end on a given date, and actually ended at midnight of the day before, I would like to suggest that, if there is a set date for an event to end, the event actually end on that date, as in midnight of the date, and not midnight the day before. I had been scrambling to get it done, spending precious resources and gems (and even some real money) only to get snookered out of my reward at the last moment. Honestly, I was furious and extremely frustrated; I actually considered, for the first time, just dropping out of the game.
Anyway, long post over. The_Cow_God had some good ideas here! :-)