I'm not even bothering with gift hunting myself.
I did it last year, and it took hours for only 9 items. I regret doing so then, and with even more items and no achievement I haven't bothered either. I would like some of the sets, but with them limited to Halloween and full moons I can't justify buying them, trading for them or spending hours collecting pieces than even longer trying to trade them up to a full set.
I know what you mean. Played for 10+ hours, only got one goddamn present, the stupid leg wraps for the scout. I also bought two of the items for the Sniper, because I got the third from the cauldron and I had enough money left over from when I got a paid account.
Considering the problems with it last year I think it is the real failure of this event, monoculus and the underworld have issues (crits, uber and speed boost is a bit ridiculous, I don't think crits should anger monoculous, there's no incentive to help kill him or stop killing enemies if you have the achievements and are just looking for gifts) but they are completely new things, issues with them are forgiveable.
Yeah. You know what would have been really nice? Say you already have the bombnomicon and you reach it again in the underworld. Instead of getting another bombnomicon (or whatever), if you got one of the holloween items instead or at least a chance to get one. That way you have an incentive to kill monoculus (for loot), but you still have to invest time into it (which is what Valve seems to want). After all, you'll have to particpate in the event for at least 5 hours to get all the items. 3 items * 9 classes = 27 items + 1 bombnomicon = 28 items * ~10 minutes for monoculus to spawn/die = 280 minutes which is 20 minutes shy of five hours. Obviously those (rough) calculations assume that you acquire no items through trading, that you acquire an item each time, that everybody wants to kill monoculus, that you find no presents and that you recieve no duplicates. Overall the above solution more fair than the current situation for players who don't have the time to acquire the items, or can't organize a private server with friends to farm items, or just aren't plain lucky.