If plants are meant to be strategic points maybe there can be better alternatives?

Just remember - some things said below is only my opinion and may not reflect real situation.

As I understood what Riot tries to do with plants is to add points of interest into jungle so that gameplay would not be concentrated on lanes only. Moreover I think this is a good idea overall since jungle terrain is non-linear.

[preamble] There are some problems with plants IMHO. One of the biggest - is extremes. Some people complain and call it randomness but I think the problem is not semi-random nature of plants but the fact they can overturn a situation in an instant for no reason. It's like crit. You can win if you crit. But you loose if you don't. One difference though is that you intentionally gamble when building crit. While plants are given for free. How it is good?! More strategy and planning. Now you not only have to place a ward (and clear wards) behind dragon or Baron pit but take control over plants. But apart from this control over plants - they don't give much strategy. They don't gravitate both teams into conflict, they don't force players into team-wise preliminary planning. They just give binary outcome at "random". If you got blast cone when chased by enemy - good (crit - win). If didn't get - not good (no crit - loose). If there was mature Scryer's Bloom when enemy was taken Baron - good (crit - win). If there wasn't - not good (no crit - loose). Binary and no much strategy actually.

[suggestions] Give more contesting objectives. Those that can be planed before and fought for. Like Dragon or Baron. Here are few that just came to mind: -Vision tree (overlaps with Scryer's Bloom in mechanic but have different utilisation). A plant-like object that gives vision of an area for 2 minutes. It cannot simply be killed by a single champion (has huge regeneration for example or its defense weakens if it is attacked by multiple champions at once). It requires time to be killed but grants vision control over area. If you invade and take this objective - you would be able to see enemy jungler positioning. On the other hand your jungler needs to take control of the objective. It should have specific spawn mechanic so that enemy would be aware of it's presence. For example it appears on big intersection near buff if all jungle camps on that side are cleared. -Jungle friend. Mechanic similar to HotS camps (if I understand correctly how they work). At specific time a special monster appears in jungle (for both teams). If killed - it goes on rampage to lane that has more turrets or closest one. When on rampage it has protection similar to bannered minion. So if you invade enemy jungle and kill this monster - you receive big sieging potential. In regards to your jungle you need to protect it from enemy. In terms of mechanics - it appears later in mid-game and wanders deep in jungle (area closer to walls). It is really hard to be killed by a single champion. When killed - it issues a global roar (like dragons and Baron) that may allow invaded team to group and collapse on enemy. It completely overlaps in mechanics with Baron but has different strategic positioning. Like an objective you need to protect. -Objectives that give temporary global resource for a time. Similar to altars in Hexakill. It doesn't stay active like altars and needs to be recaptured. It deactivates for a period of time after being captured. It may be present in river or other semi-neutral territory. Needs a lot of time to be captured by single player.

So basically overall difference to plants: -they require bigger effort for controlling them (several team members, vision, etc.) but don't cost anything (contrary to dragons/Herald/Baron) -they require more time to be taken (so that they may be contested) -they give significant and predictable bonus (so that would be wanted to be contested) -they have predictable and simple spawn mechanic and pattern

Suggestions above are examples and not intended to be used all at once.

P.S.: Poacher's Dirk is actually an amazing idea in regards to making jungle more dynamic and live.