First, I would like to explain what I've seen from these, and then what I think needs some kind of change-

The purpose of the shadow keys, is to make something harder, but also something that isn't just a run of the mill run through the clockworks. Each run through will give you one new item provided that you come prepared- so you WILL NOT have to buy 20 shadow keys to get the gear. The high cost is simply a way to make it more special, and is less so a horrible way to get at our cash than a way to add a new sink for the energy prices- which are "too low" at 5.9K per 100 CE. In order to balance this out, OOO will likely make a new crown sink to make energy prices drop again; they know what they are doing (for the most part).

Another interesting point, is that the levels cost a ton, and provide a ton at the same time- this is to ensure that players gain SOMETHING when they are there, and to make it feel more like the player is profiting (even though they're losing 20K, the mats and cr from the levels should help out to cover this huge cost). The excess boss tokens are to lessen the amount of grinding needed to gain a piece of gear- 115 tokens for all roarmulus items (2 cata, 2 pulsar, full quicksilver, voltaic temptest) = about 38 runs of normal roarmulus; Every shadow roarmulus run thus decreases that number by 1, as well as adds a new challenge, and gives the player more mats for crafting. The same goes for the other new bosses.

However, all did not go as planned when OOO released it, the playerbase lashed back with petitions and complaints, for the following reasons-
-All previous runs were supposed to be run of the mill. In contrast, the new runs looked like new content areas that costed money.
-The keys were not buyable except through silver keys, which gave them worthless costume items. Meaning that the item "costed" 750xnumber of boxes you have to open to get one.
-You have to go through the levels to get from snarby to vanaduke in order, forcing you to buy more keys.
-It isn't new content, but is simply ripped off from the old.

The reasons that OOO gave for these, were-
-The shadow keys are on the auction house, meaning that people who don't want to waste their energy on the runs can easily make a decent profit and get back to opening for the costume items.
-They are in fact reading the threads about this, and are looking at the responses, but would rather not type why they do stuff in length to every player 500 times. I don't blame them.

Popular suggestions the players made, and why they don't work-
-Make the shadow keys last forever!- This will inflate the price of CE due to the new runs being harder, and drive away the new players who then see CE as being too costly. It will only replace vanaduke as the new cash cow, and make the new armors common and boring.
-Make the shadow keys buyable with tokens!- That would ruin the idea of making a new way to earn items, as well as make the price of token items rise. It would also inflate the number of new items, due to the excess of keys due to people buying them with tokens AND recieving them from boxes.
-Make the shadow keys buyable with CE!- This would make the keys more akin to weapon slots- people sell them at 210 CE to make 40CE from the mist that helped buy them. This would either limit the price of the item to around 700 CE, or be pointless as the price stayed at around 500 CE as demand decreases.
-Make special boxes for the keys!- This would simply raise the price of special boxes, AND make the shadow keys more rare, if they were removed from the normal ones. While it would be a sure way to receive the item, it wouldn't actually help anything.
-The give away isn't good enough! Do more!- I thought this at first too. However, the give away will help to start the process of the keys going toward their equilibrium price.

My suggestions:
There is currently a problem with many normal runs. The punkin thing is intended to help fix this- with it, people are like "OH BOY! CLOCKWORK TUNNELS! PROFIT!" instead of "BAH. ARENA. WAIT. ONLY RUN VANA/JELLY KING." If some kind of a token were given for getting to the bottom of a non-boss stratum, it could help to turn around the problem of level skipping and only doing boss runs. I know you're probably thinking "This will cause inflation and be terrible!", but no. Make it so that the tokens are harder to get- getting to the bottom of T1 could give a small amount, like 3, the bottom of T2 could give 6, and the bottom of T3 could give something like 15 (not to say these values must be, but you get it). Then, when the players have earned a certain amount of shadow tokens, a key could be purchased for however many- something like 500 or so. It'd take a long time to earn one, but it would make the normal runs slightly more viable for players, would solve the problem of keys being random, and wouldn't interfere very much with the normal plan of buying them from AH as a store.

If this does not appeal to you (OOO), then my second suggestion would be to either make them more common (1/40? Come on guys), so that the runs are easier to get to, or make them attainable in a different way, of your choosing, but NOT at random.

The last thing I'd like to suggest, is in the way updates are revealed- EXPLAIN THEM. If you don't tell people that the runs are special, and that they aren't like other runs, and that they aren't supposed to be done daily, then players will assume the worst, and make petitions, even if they haven't seen the content. Include notes like "Fixed mercurial mail showing a positive decrease in speed" and "Changed the entire Jelly King battle". Players like to know these things, and it gives you a positive image, which is what you want.

Now tear me to bits, insult my mother, and explain why this is a terrible idea. Or support me. Or if you're OOO, give me an ambiguous sounding reply that won't tell me if anyone has taken this seriously, but that it has been read.