The thing is........IT SHOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

If server issues were a problem then a note on the pages saying 'be patient...due to the overwhelming responses the system is clogged.  Please try again shortly'    or something to that effect.

I run a 'real life' business and we often do promotional freebie kind of things but it would be professional suicide to say  'well hang on the demand is huge so you can only have it free if you spend $x.'

What Rendo did was extremely unprofessional and prob did a lot of harm. 
If I had been one of the vendors involved, I'd be looking elsewhere as an outlet for ALL my stuff after that.  Theres plenty of places out there .........DAZ in particular if you want a 'big' selling place and lots of other little 'boutique' stores as well.  And they offer a much more professional service too!!