Ok so this is my take on this year's April fool's:
I think we all got that it's an obvious reference to DashCon, with the ball pit and all. And I think the intention was that as DashCon was super lame and disappointing, and so was this year's event. That's the prank– it's lame.
Me myself, I was way too young to experience the con (or fandom in general) but many on this site we're there to see the shit show it was live. So I think staff thought the users would appreciate the "homage" so to say.
Now, the 10 year anniversary of the con was in July of last year so idk why they decided to do it this year ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And I think it just was really too lame for it to work, especially after last year's boops which we all LOVED. So I, as well as everyone else, were disappointed by how 'meh' it was.
Also, the involvement of math DID NOT help.