I don't believe community reps are supposed to host events or help run things. The fact that it's a campaign promise is due to two things: that it's an easy promise to make (and is expected, kinda, now) and that people want to elect someone who will do something active, rather than passive. I always thought the CR was merely a conduit from the community to the moderation team, and to me, that's all that matters - who you trust to bring concerns to the mod team directly like the elected representative title suggests, but since this is a passive thing (merely waiting for a concern to come up) it's not a sexy thing to promise, and the easiest thing to promise is the active results of events.
What I'd like to see from CR applications (and CRs, really) is two things - a promise to communicate with the community and the moderation team and solve problems that occur between the two, and to connect often silenced communities (the pubs, cav, minor languages) with the mainstream. But everyone just wants a tournament or something, and that seems like a monumental waste of the position.