I think the issue Aelisha discusses - catering to RPer vs. wider populations - is a big one, and came up during the Sansha events as well. In this particular case, I think the battle was preemptively made one sided due to the fact that players were tracking and following the Raiders long before the engagement began; compare this to the Serpentis event, in which at the start Seriphyn, Scherezad and myself were more or less the only "defending" forces on field.
EDIT: Valerie and Synthia were following us around in frigates while we were still in highsec, Lou. I don't know if they followed the Blood Raiders into Sahtogas.
Back in the Sansha events, fights were at times pre-announced, but countered with at least 3 well-coordinated dev actors on field plus hoards of NPCs; conversely, there were also times where we would be given 4 or 5 widely-spread systems to watch, and then scramble 10+ jumps when it became clear which were being hit.
Mind you, given that this appears to be an attempt not to work towards a defined story-point but to simply make as much noise as possible to get people into the storyline again; I'm debating whether this is the best choice (no defined story arc tends to focus people more on the short term loot pinatas rather than the long-term story objectives), but I'm waiting to see where they go with the Blood Raider arc before I start poo-pooing CCP again - so far it's been a pleasant surprise.
