Balancing Concerns...

It's becoming increasingly obvious in my opinion that Riot is no longer interested in balancing the game, but instead is hand picking which Champions the deem to be "Meta" and then occasionally changing the meta when things start to get stale. Take for example... hes been extremely strong for quite some time, but since hes a new-ish Champion and obviously one of Riot's favorites he isn't receiving many changes (or changes to the correct parts of his kit) to tone down his game play even though the community has been frequently telling them hes a bit over-tuned (I'm being generous with that comment). Now I understand it's their game, so they can do w/e the heck they want with it, but why even have a balancing team if you don't want to actually attempt to balance the game? Is it just for the image? I'm interested in what the community thinks about this situation and if Riot is actually trying to balance their game or just playing favorites and switching it up from time to time when things get a bit stale!