(Spoiler because a European or Aussie or Canadian is going to call me out: All dollar values are in US dollars, obviously.)
You're right, but for the wrong reasons, I think.
I think a lot of users weren't bled dry monetarily - an extra $2.50 is not much. Gaia, however, DID destroy most of its goodwill (and is apparently nowhere near gaining it back, it seems). Hell, I recall when the offer first went up, there were literally three pages of people posting, "Well, Gaia's just going to take the money and run with it."
In other words, we thought that Gaia was more corrupt than even the Filipino government. (And that wasn't entirely baseless! I still remember the ******** from the Japanese tsunami.)
So it wasn't a question of people not being able to donate - I think it was a question of people not wanting to donate
through Gaia.
The other thing? They did sell a lot of halos. At $2.50 a pop, they sold 2,761 halos. (40 halos per $100, 40 * 69 = 2760, and then the one halo that pushed it over to $6,902.50.) However, the 250 GC Halo of Bayanihan was at a significantly lower price point than the Halo of Kannon - their Japan Tsunami drive was a lot larger (although it had the $1 - 100GC - Emblem of Kannon, it had its halo at 500 GC, or $5. And it had a third item - the Coat of Kannon, at 1000 GC, or $10.)
Speaking for myself, I would have bought the halo at a higher price point (500 or 1000 GC), but I felt odd about buying multiples. (I find it gauche to profit off of tragedy. I could have bought some for my friends, but that didn't occur to me.) I'm sure others felt the same way.
tl;dr - no one trusts Gaia anymore olololo, and they sold the Halo of Bayanihan too cheap. So I think they could have done better under different circumstances - if I recall, the tsunami drive eventually made $40,000.
One more thing - while I'm mostly happy with how this ran, I think that for their next drive they should consider matching funds (up to a certain amount). Yes, I'm putting more heat on Gaia, even though I think overall they handled this pretty well. In this case, I'd support a limit on matching because...well, that actually does put heat on Gaia, and I don't want them to go bankrupt due to charity.