Why does Lee Sin Q still have significantly one of the highest base damages in the game?

Most champions' abilities have 70-90 base damage at rank 1.

Lee's Q has 110 base damage before considering the execute.

Lee's Q has ~115-127 base damage realistically at rank 1. This is between 100% and 70% HP, depending on the enemy jungler's clear.

That's before any scaling is considered.

Why does Lee still get to have one of the highest damaging abilities in the early game? Late game it makes a little more sense considering how he falls off. But as such an overbearing early game champion, why is this even a thing? Even if the damage were nerfed to 45/45 for Q1/Q2, he'd still have an advantage over most champs due to the execute damage carrying it to ~100 against a full HP target.

So realistically as such a strong early game champion, why has his Q not been nerfed to 45/45 rank 1? He'd still be one of the best duelists in the game early-mid, and still have one of the highest base damage abilities in the game. The only thing that would change is he'd be a tiny bit less able to crowd out certain weaker early game picks.