New Malzahar Not Fun or Smooth

I remember the first time I played preRW Malzahar. His mechanics were so damn smooth. His area deterrence through his W was just fantastic. The E mindgame was so much fun. And when you get that perfect QWER combo...magnificent. The voidlings were a nice bonus if your timing was right and you got a solid combo, and a little extra pressure in lane. His E was always a little tough to maintain until Rank 3, but after that is was smooth rolling DoTs. Even the way his Q worked gave you some play to cast in front of a moving enemy and catch them. He wasn't very "good", but he was fun to play. Everything worked together in a smooth play cycle.

Now?

His low E damage makes it very hard to roll his DoTs, which makes it very difficult to get onto champs off of minions, or keep going through a wave of minions, especially without the W to help it along. You receive a very low amount of mana early game when you really need it, and more than you really need late game. You need Voidlings, but it's on a 20s CD and they inevitably get focused down quickly. Without his W, he has basically no zoning or area deterrence, and no way of really threatening tanks anymore. Buying Rylandri's is kind of pointless without the void zone, but was a very good combo for him. The base damage on his R is nice at high level, but not as much as his W->R was before at any level. His Q leaves you much more exposed because of the removal of the delay, which experienced players learned to work around.

Granted, if you get 4 voidlings out, hit with E then R, it's game over. But keeping Voidlings out is pretty tough as they get focused fast. It's a nice distraction. Jungle Malz is gonna be real good, and Malz is great for taking these more important objectives. But the gameplay isn't smooth at all. I am overall disappointed that my favorite champ is not at all the champ I loved. This happened to me with Heimerdinger too, and I have to wonder why Riot feels the need to dick with the game so much? And what their goals are? Overall these Mage reworks seem lazy and rushed, and do not seem to have the care or playtesting the original champs did. Is Riot training a B-string design team by having them work on reworks? Are they just overwhelmed with how big the game has become? I am really just not enjoying League anymore, and this is getting close to the last straw.