First off, my group has really enjoyed the AP1. I've used it to create one of my most memorable campaigns ever. Thanks!
However, the requirement for a PC to have obtained the Sign of the Smoking Eye to successfully complete the entire campaign stinks. Why wasn't this mentioned all those adventures ago when the template was available? At least a hint of the future importance of the template would have been handy to me, the DM. Sure, other "possible" keys are suggested - good outsiders can attack (sorry, just elves and humans in my group), LG & CE attack at the same time (nope, neither of those), forcing a reborn Vhalantru to attack (yeah, right!).
I'm sure I'll come up with something, of necessity, but it will not mesh seamlessly as we're up to the last few nights of playing this storyline and I'll have to tack it on and lead the group by the nose to it. Once again, I have enjoyed AP1 but this final, and previously unmentioned, requirement is disappointing. I hope such matters of import in AP2 are addressed earlier than the last installment.
Creative Director
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We're planning all of AP2 at once, and we'll be revealing much of its outline to the readers in the issue that the first adventure appears in, so hopefully we'll be able to avoid this type of problem there.
As for solving the problem of no one having the smoking eye template, my best advice is to look at your particular group of players and to tweak the final encounter so that only those characters could have a chance to finish the adventure.
Perhaps Graz'zt used a host of powerful enslaved elves when he built the cage, and forced them to basically work to death in creating it. As they died with the cage's completion, their souls left a mark, a weakness on the cage. A weakness that can sense the proximity of other elves from the same region some of the elf PCs come from. Of course, this is just a super rushed idea, but the point I'm trying to make is to make the completion of the adventure something that only the PCs can do. We chose the sign of the smoking eye template as the key because we had to choose something, and in the context of the adventure path as a whole it seemed to be the most unusual feature that a PC in the group would likely possess.