It's a good quest, no doubt about it, kudos to the team that put this together. However since storyline quests are made to be advance evolution of donation items (i know there are non donation options available but i don't think it's worth the trouble of going through such a complicated quest to make a non-donation copy of it), so the rich becoming richer is somewhat expected due to the requirements of the quest, and the group that lead the quests would be people who could get a hold on capes which basically put them in the well geared range. It is unfortunate that some people decided to abuse the quest (hording ingredients, overpricing rings), but since the last update things have changed for the better.
I won't be arguing on the rightfulness of this decision because this will just lead to an inconclusive debate as those who did the quest find it bad those who didn't find it good, it is hard to judge whose interest should be weighted higher over the other. If the main reason behind this is for the good of the community, then probably it could have used some soft landing, this is kinda abrupt, especially after a new update not long ago which significantly improved all the issues you mentioned above. My main concern is if this was placed as a counter measure to that specific someone's challenge, if it is then i think there are better alternatives.