Kickstarter for new Champs and Skins
Has Riot ever thought about giving the community a chance to pick which new skins/champs they'd like to invest in?
My thought is that you could have a page with new skins and champs that are currently being worked on, and then allow players to "buy" into ideas that excite them with RP. As with Kickstarter, you could give approximate timelines for delivery, updates on the project's progress, and maybe even a timed exclusivity for "backers".
So, for instance, if everyone's all hot-and-bothered for, say, a Dark Leona skin, they could pay 975 RP (perhaps 760 initially for the first day or two of the "kickstarter"). On the skin's page you could give an approximate delivery date (Jan 2015, etc), maybe even add stretch goals (if we get 200,000 RP invested in this skin, we'll add additional voice work and particle updates). Then, as the work is being completed in the skin you could give updates with Z-Brush mockups, skin previews, etc. Finally, when the skin is released, during the first week players who backed the project would get exclusive access to the skin, with a regular release the following week.
EDIT: You could also do the same thing with VUs, map updates (like the new Summoner's rift), and champion reworks, but let people pay for these with IP rather than RP, with no timed exclusivity, for obvious reasons.
I'll be willingly spending RP or IP on it.