Garen + Aery was op before patching it up?

Garen was better off with Grasp of the Undying. The increased damage from stacking health scales so well with Juggernauts. And Garen's playstyle often involves hitting them with Q often and falling back to heal, which let's him stay in lane and proc Grasp of the Undying quite often. Plus, the increased max health synergizes great with the free Armor/MR from Courage.

I think you watch too much SRO.

Grasp, and most importantly the Resolve tree in general, is just better.

What do you get from Sorcery that you can't just make it secondary? Ult hat or Orb is nice, and Scorch. The middle tree is largely pointless.

You get roughly the same damage, but increased health, from a Q>W>A combo with Grasp. And its damage scales better.