I agree that this end of event was messy, compared to past ones.
Putting the arches in the store is an awesome decision, but doing so at the last minute and without any announcement renders it a bit pointless for many of us.
The same way keeping the stores open past April 30th is great but also a last minute and unannounced move.
Many of us bought from the stores according to what we knew of the rules, before those changes were made so it ends up not being that useful after all, which I think can be very frustrating, especially for people for whom this was their first event.
If keeping the commands up or returning items to the store, in order to get one last arch, isn't doable, maybe sending enough free sproutlings to everyone could make up for the frustration?