How was Support role back in Season 3?

I was tired of Hearing Montecristo and DoA talking about how LCK season 3 championship Bo5 series was the best Bo5 series ever, at least that they had casted, so I watched, and I'll admit I had a great time watching the whole thing, BUT...

I just started playing on March 2015, so some champion picks and item builds seemed weird to me, yet the thing that drew my attention more than anything was how supp was played and built.

There's not much information as a detailed article of sorts that helped me understod the role at that time better, either, so I'm asking people who were around the scene at that time to explain me briefly as the can just which champions were strong, which items were bought, and the overall impact of supports at that time.

Things I observed that seemes relevant or rather of interest to me where:

1. Since no gold generation starting items were available at the time, at least that I saw, supports were starved of relevant items for at least 10-12 minutes into the game, in which sightstones were rushed, and Ruby sighstones only camed around 22 minutes. So it seems to me that at that pace of income, supports laked any combat stats overall for the whole mid game, and I cannot even imagine how long a match had to prolong for a supp to have full build.
2. The more popular picks at least on that series were Sona, Fiddlesticks, and Zyra. I guesses that the reason for this was because they all provided some amount of "reliable" hard engage independant of combat stats. I don't guess picks like Leona who as an engage tool take hits a lot was a popular pick at the time just because there was no chance of buying tanky items, no real chance of tanking damage either.
3. As starved and limited support options were on that series, supports played a HUGE part on the outcome of each match, being either the ones macking plays around the map, or being engaged on.

So, if you can help me understand a little better the Support role as a whole I'll be incredibly thankful, hopefully some supp mains at the time check the boards somewhat regularly cause I'd love their comments.