Riot just did the typical "buff EVERYTHING" approach to baron.

Riot was unsatisfied with baron's power, so instead of buffing one aspect of it and seeing where it went from there, they buffed almost every aspect of it at once. Now it takes a massive, massive throw for the team who gets baron to lose, whereas before you still had to overcome defender's advantage. Instead of using proper positioning and rotations to pick away at towers, or find a good opportunity to engage, the game takes care of the towers for you - and unless you fuck up monumentally, you will win if the enemy team engages, due to the massive amount of free stats you get.

If baron is meant to enable you to break through the enemy base, and the counter is supposed to be immediately engaging, why does it need so many free stats on top of that?