I don't feel it was so much people lost interest - its always the problem when 1 or 2 games take a long time (there was a double default earlier) which caused everything to be held up. As someone who has organised many tournies back in my GM days, I find that you either accept that it'll run for a little while, like this one. You can run a 'week' tournament, where you publish a week, where you ask people to be ready giving a stricter 2-3 day deadline, and generally a losers bracket doesn't really work if you want speed (I personally think the principal of this tournament worked well though)
Alternatively you run a 'longer' tournament - I used to run 'swiss' tournaments (mainly seen in Chess tournaments or such 2 player games) where you set a number of rounds, and using certain criteria, allow each pair say 1 week to play, once that week expires (anyone who hasn't played, either a win is awarded if one is more active, or if neither active call it a draw - yes that can work in this format hehe) then you have round 2 - say up to 6 rounds - it takes about 6 weeks, and allows everyone who wants to play to play in every round.
Obviously, the option of a 1 day tournament can work, although often proves difficult to get the numbers required, and you need a long time on that day, with different people finishing at different times.
Hope this helps
