Dito. I am in complete agreement with you and am awaiting some sort of reply from anet as to when we can expect a refund of influence. A canceled project should also return the influence spent trying to expedite; regardless if it was spent purposefully or accidently.
Secondly, to prevent such issues in the future, I would recommend a “confirmation to spend influence in order to expedite” permission box.
Lastly, why such a huge expense of influence to play game content today. I already think waiting 3 days while it builds is silly. Let players access the content for goodness sakes.
I really feel sorry for those belonging to medium or small guilds…it will be weeks if not months to open the content. Oh! That would be our guild.