Concerns About "Runes" Reforged

Let me start by saying that I'm very excited for the upcoming new combined Rune/Mastery system. I think it's a much-needed change, and combining the stat and mechanic aspects of runes and masteries into one free-to-everyone tree is a great intuitive move in the right direction.

That being said, I have some concerns which I would appreciate being at least addressed with an explanation.

First of all, the "Runes Reforged" name is misleading, in my opinion, as is referring to the new system exclusively as "runes". They aren't runes, and have much more in common with the mastery system than the rune system. Yes, they offer an equivalent to the rune type stat buffs, but mechanically and in terms of impact on gameplay, they have MUCH more similarity to the masteries. This is fine, I prefered the mastery system anyways, and I get that this new system is meant to be a combination. I just think that the naming scheme should be something new, to reflect the difference, and not lean so heavily on the "rune" moniker.

My second, and MAJOR, concern is that the new system is inexplicably retaining the old rune page system. This makes no sense, and seems to really be counter intuitive to the whole point of making runes free. It seems to me like they're forcing people to buy more rune pages than they've previously needed. As someone who doesn't want to fork over cash for a gameplay mechanic, and would rather spend my blue essence on champions, this is a major concern.

For example, previously I had a handful of generic rune pages for each role and champ archetype, with a couple champ-specific pages for my mains. The mastery pages were free and unlimited, which allowed me to have one for every champ I play, PLUS they were editable in the champ select screen. Being that masteries had far greater impact on gameplay, this made sense, and kept things accessible. However, now with the new system, you are at a major disadvantage if you don't have a bunch of pages to customize for each champ you might play, plus runes aren't editable in pre-game.

My proposal is that Riot either makes the Runes Reforged page system more akin to the current mastery pages, or at least offers a handful of free pages to start with and allows them to be edited in pre-game. To have to go into your pages and change them for whatever champ you wanna play before each and every queue would be extremely arduous and pressure people into buying pages.

I don't believe anything as core to the gameplay as the new masteries (cough I mean "runes") should be behind a paywall, be it grinded in-game currency or real money. That's just my two cents based on what Riot has revealed thus far. Thanks for reading! 😁

Edit: I totally missed that they had confirmed pages would be editable in pre-game screen. Glad to hear that, thanks to those who let me know. My other concern, about the free mastery pages being removed and replaced with the purchaseable rune pages, still stands, and warrants discussion in my opinion. Thanks!