What is the goal of champion reworks these days?

Hey there. This is going to be some kind of rant, so please bear with me. There's a tl;dr at the end though, if you (rightfully) don't want to read through that wall of text.

Brief background I took a break from League for quite some time, and even though I knew the Irelia rework was coming at the time, I stopped playing before seeing what they were going to do to her. I really liked Irelia. I'd been playing her for nearly 5 years. Her snowballing potential and how taking advantage of it could win games in low elo was really great. However, after a certain rank, it became harder and harder to "carry" with Irelia, as her damage was very underwhelming late-game compared to other champions, and the enemy team often knew how to shut her down before she reached her powerspikes (but that didn't mean she was useless by any means). People's complaints over Aatrox's rework made me think some things over, though.

My complaint Reworking the champions doesn't have anything to do with balance, kit health or a "champ was not fun" kind of thing anymore. I've had the time to play a lot of ranked recently, and I didn't really see much of Irelia at all due to her being banned in almost every game, but I did encounter her many times when playing Normals with friends though, and my question is this: What exactly did they try to achieve with this Irelia rework? And why Irelia?

I understand reworking champions like Urgot who had a completely outdated kit due to the release of newer champions (who tend to have lots of mobility) but why rework someone like Irelia? Her strengths and weaknesses were very clear. The only part of her kit that really needed a rework was her ulti. It felt off, and really, spamming R at the enemy to throw projectiles at them was not that fun. Was the rework made to hone her weaknesses and strengths because she was "too good"? Not really. Her kit is more overloaded than before. Lots of damage reduction, a disarm (whatever that is), a slow, a dash that can be refreshed even if you dont kill the champion you're fighting with, a heal and a long range stun that can hit multiple people. She is also a late game beast now. The only thing the two Irelias have in common anymore is their weakness to CC. This version of Irelia is basically a huge buff to a champion that doesn't exist anymore. Why not release another champion. Maybe to save the hassle of trying to balance old Irelia?

Then there's Swain. Even though new Swain is a fun champion imo, there was virtually nothing wrong with his old kit to warranty a complete overhaul, just like Irelia. New Swain looks cooler than old Swain I guess? The same situation was true for Karma. a very unique kit that sadly doesn't exist anymore. Again, just release a new champion.

There have been successes though. A successful rework was Xin's rework. It didn't change the champion's playstyle, but it kept him fresh and fun to play.

The now blurred line dividing champion roles The difference between old League and new League is made crystal clear with all these reworks. Back then, champions were very good at one thing, and the team had to be built in a way that everyone's weaknesses were covered by another champion, creating a very strong comp. Now we're at a point where nearly every new/reworked champion has lots of mobility, some kind of CC, some kind of escape, lots of damage and more. You have tanks that can 1v1 the ADC without building any damage. You can win games with a comp 10 times worse than your opponent's because your opponent happens to have a champion that can kill everything that moves without really putting himself at any risk (one of the only champions to do this in old LoL was Kassadin and he was permabanned in almost every ranked game before being nerfed to obscurity for more than half a year as a result). This isn't fun. The game has become a teamfight simulator where you farm for 20 minutes, and then hope you fuck up less than the enemy team does (I am talking about higher elos of course, because Bronze/Silver and even Gold games are much more fun to play these days it seems). Now we have an uncoming Akali rework on the way, and her biggest weakness, the Twilight Shroud's predictability, won't exist anymore, but the rest of her kit is still as strong (if not stronger) than last Akali. She's already looking like a jack of all trades. Also, again, why not make a new champion with that, since the kit is so different from old Akali?

Finally, I would like to add this; There are still champions with unbalanced, weak or unhealthy kits in this game, but there is absolutely no attention given to them. This goes to show that the focus of reworks isn't always what it should be, and that the dev team tries to rework what would "look cool" instead. Here are a few: Pantheon - his kit is by far one of the most outdated and out of place kits in the game. He is not fun to play against, and all of his spells are point and click. If I remember well, Veigar's point and click Q was turned into a skillshot (but could now hit 2 enemies, this was honestly a very good balance idea without ruining the champion's kit) to make it possible to outplay him. Why prioritize reworking something like Irelia over him? Pantheon wouldn't be enough of a power fantasy? Volibear - when was the last time you saw him in a game? The mobility in new League means he gets kited hard by almost every champion in the meta, and even if he gets to you, he needs to get a lot of hits in to deal any significant damage. He's also weak as a tank, as he's basically a discount Dr Mundo at this point and there are champions that do what he does but better. Teemo - Now this is interesting. Teemo has one of the weakest kits in the game, and he loses almost every matchup post 6, especially in the current meta. But he is fun to play for a lot of people, so Riot doesn't rework him which is perfectly fine by me. But then I had fun playing old Eve as well, don't remember anyone giving a fuck about that. Mordekaiser - This one is just sad, because they reverted LeBlanc's kit to her old playstyle even if LeBlanc still worked, but they refuse to revert Morde to his old self (the one without 300 bugs, a shitty laning phase, and a meme mechanic in his R). In fact, this champion's future is so bad due to the increasing mobility kits in the game, that Riot might as well remove him from the game. But despite the huge problems all these champions have to face, they are still not prioritized over champions like Akali, who now needs a rework for some reason.

tl;dr: When reworking a champion, you are basically removing another champion from the game forever. Because of this, a rework should be taken very seriously and there should be valid reasons behind it, since you are essentially taking the fun from even just one player who had the time of his life everytime he played them. The priority should be to fix the champions that need fixing ideally without having to rework their entire kit, and release some champions as new champions when the changes are too great and the champion's old gameplay style is not preserved at all.

At least that's what I think. Feel free to share your opinions on the matter. Thanks for reading.