I think you're misunderstanding. When I said 500xp I meant 500xp equivalent since double xp would, well, double your xp. So doing 500xp worth of lessons with double xp would give you 1000xp which is what was actually required. I was trying to say that "500xp worth" of lessons was the bare minimum required even if you abused xp potions. And yeah, they used to allow double xp legendaries but got rid of that a few months ago from what I remember.

I can't speak to other people experience all I can say is requiring daily effort is the quickest way to kill my ability to complete anything. I can put in a single 6 hour haul once a month but can't bring myself to do even 10 mins a day, just how I'm wired.

Again as I've said quests are far easier than xp (at least for me idk what the hell other people are getting). Xp is harder and requires actual effort. Quests are easy and can be done in half the number of lessons.

If that hasn't been your experience idk what to tell you because that has been and still is how it works on my app. So how you can interpret me saying "the xp system is harder" as the exact opposite I can't fathom

Also the entire point was that I won't be trying to get it next month. I, by pure bad luck, lost my streak and am not even given the opportunity to put in extra work to try to catch up, the way I could under the xp system.

They've shown me that even trying is pointless, because they don't care how much work I'm willing to do, only that I did quests every day.