In the regular MTT freerolls, one can play solid poker, and later catch up to the all-in early donks who hit bingo. But in these 4x elimination games, you have to win your 10-seat table in order to move on. So, when 5 donks push on the first hand, I don't see what else there is to do but push - because you are just going to get beat over the head by the big stack of whoever wins the bingo.
Maybe you just got on some particularly bad tables... OR maybe I got on some fortunately not too bad of ones. I actually found them FAR better than any typical freeroll on any of the sites (excluding priv. ones of course). I only saw the allin preflop thing happen on one table in early levels and played a few of them. I personally would never play a reg. freeroll online because I feel the play never gets any better... you can wait there all day for a big hand to play hard and you still get the same crap happening (high blind limpers, call call call..min raise.. call call call... raise it up 5 or 6x.. call call call.. etc.).
I also don't believe the bigstack is able to wield their stack in these....simply due to the bigstack from the early shoves is a bad player and very easy to double thru.
Of the 4 I played, I made it to HU in all of them, took one down and in the other three, once I had opponent outchipped by around 3to1 I told them I'd raise to 1 chip less than their stack... they shove ALLIN.. I fold. I did this with each of them cuz I'd lost interest and also because it actually felt good to give them a break and move onto the next round.
Maybe I had a far different experience from your own.. or maybe I hit them as they were just beginning this promotion... because the play was actually good enough that I suggested to some newer players to go check them out for some free SNG practise.
Okay okay... you might not believe what I'm saying. This is how strongly I feel (felt) about it. The games I played in had play that far exceeded any & all $8 satellite shootouts on Fulltilt...by FAR!!!! Maybe they've changed now??? Too bad if they have.
Hmm.. maybe I should've stuck it out and took a shot at final 10plyrs. Guessing you advance to a freeroll of 12K players for a winner take all seat to WSOP ME. Still.. it'd be pretty cool to get it for free.
Oh yah.. the one where I actually decided to play in the 2nd rd. Major donkings in early levels, lol. Maybe I just got lucky with random table selection in the other's I played???