Some of them did do those things for their spot on the leaderboard, just look at CoM. Maeby was told that there was no reward for 20k tower hours, but she still went the distance. As for the game not being built around that, the all-time leaderboards were added for a reason, to motivate people. I understand that new players might not be motivated by 800,000 something pks or 20k tower hours, but they were motivating to the people striving to get those numbers. People who have worked their way up the leaderboards understand this. I'm sure they'll add the all-time board information back into the game though, even if it's not as leaderboards.