Just like it says above, my group killed the Jade Maw and the reward chest appeared. While I was reviving a teammate who was dead, so I didn’t check my box. My teammate didn’t check his box because he was waiting to open the chest too. The group got taken out of the fractal, I didn’t get credit for finishing, my personal reward level didn’t go up, and I missed 35 fractal relics. Same for my teammate.
I’ve been told that if the starter of a dungeon or fractal leaves then the party gets kicked out to Mistlock. Regardless of party mechanics it is an anomaly that we finished the fractal and I didn’t get anything to show for it.
Anet likely didn’t want to remove the armor stats entirely because…well,
we’ve all seen what happens in games where there’s no disadvantage to taking your pants off.