Runes Reforged Creates more Problems than it can Ever Solve

What I'm saying is that Runes Reforged is a flashy gimmick. The flaws of the old (Prior to Keystones) Rune-page/Mastery system were blatant, Rune Pages and Runes were expensive, which gated choice and accessibility, especially for new players. There was nothing more painful than having to choose to buy a new Rune Page over a flashy new champion.

The Benefits of Runes Reforged is that it's completely free - you can edit your runes in champion select (something that people were asking for for years), so being forced to buy new rune pages for champion or build path variation is now a thing of the past.

The down side is that it's accelerated something that has been fatal to the meta and enjoy-ability of many games - damage creep.

The final mastery available in the old Rune System's offensive tree was Havoc, which allowed for 3% damage amplification. Compare that to today's Thunderlord, which allows for 50-220 base damage + 50% bonus ad or 30% AP (or PTA 12% increase!), and it becomes painstakingly easily to see why people on boards are constantly complaining about damage being too high. Especially when you consider that some other Keystones grant as much, if not even more damage depending on the champions kit.

You could argue that that's offset by the introduction of runes such as Summon Aery and other defensive masteries. But now we've landed in a precarious situation where Runes Reforged now has a sizeable impact on the balance of the game. The old Runes/Masteries were important, yes, but very rarely so important that champions actually had to be balanced around them. Now, however, Riot has to embark on the delicate task of balancing champions, itemisation, and Runes Reforged all at once - because if one falls out of sync, you end up with things such a pre-nerf Klepto GP top. Another example of this is Bruisers, who fell out of favour massively and required a new Rune to be introduced just for them. (and even then, you can still argue that their needs still aren't being entirely met since, as I'm sure you're aware, the balance of Top Lane is still a much complained about issue) Or even champions such as Fiddlesticks who, with the jungle changes and Runes Reforged changes, simply can't function as they once could. He relies on sustain so the universal increase in burst, as well as the fact that there isn't really a rune that he truly synergises with, has left Fiddlesticks mains wanting.

And this is just a focus on the Keystones, the secondary Runes are arguably even more of a problem. Runes such as Bone Plating, Second Wind, Mana Flow Band and Commencing Stop Watch have really only served to minimise the weaknesses that were imposed on them by the previous balance team while accentuating their strengths, but in turn limiting skill expression. For example, commencing stopwatch had to be nerfed multiple times because it negatively impacted on the meaningful choices that an early game champion, or early game focused role could make. I remember one Korean clip where a fight broke out at level 4 botlane with like 8 people involved,and nearly every single one of them used stop-watch and essentially made the plays made by the other teams meaningless. Similarly, with it, a champion such as Orianna could double-down on her advantage as a notoriously safe-pick, and effectively become immune to the engages of assassins such as Zed or Talon - with a single rune meaningful agency has been taken from them. Meanwhile Mana flow band for some reason allows Mana champions to spam their abilities without hesitation...so Orianna who was once gaited by mana now isn't, and is effectively pseudo-resource-less, now agency has been removed in two ways. Commencing Stopwatch removes the reward of targeting her health pool, while Manaflow band prevents you from fighting with her resource bar. I'm not using this as an example to specifically point the finger at Orianna as something that's balanced/imbalanced...but this kind of distortion of what should be meaningful strengths and weaknesses of champions/classes can be seen throughout Runes Reforged, such as certain runes negating the weak early that tanks traditionally should suffer from, which is honestly bad balance since such trends are not only frustrating to play against, but can also require for target nerfing of certain champions or items because they synergise too well, even though they are otherwise balanced.

As for Kleptomancy, why Riot would introduce an RNG rune when they've historically had trouble balancing other RNG mechanics such as Dodge and Crit (Dodge was rightfully removed, and Crit has been complained about basically since its inception) is beyond me.

I don't want to type anymore, but I'm sure there's more examples of Runes Reforged ruining balance (Or simply limiting player choice (I miss custom tailored rune pages for instance, 1% crit, or full pen, ful as, full ap etc. Despite everything that Riot said, old runes actually provided more diversity)

Here's a TLDR; A major reason for damage currently being so high? Runes reforged. Kleptomancy? Cancer Commencing Stopwatch? BS, needed to be nerfed multiple times. Just another Gimmick. Future's Market? Lowkey overpowered Relentless Hunter/Magical Footwear? Yay, more movement speed creep. Adaptive AD/AP? Thank you for locking me into stats that I might not have wanted, so much for player/skill expression. Second Wind/ Bone Plating? Thanks for making tanks even safer/stronger than they already are early game. So much for weak early in return for scaling. Electrocute? Because thunderlords was sooo balanced. Fleet of footwork? Aids. Sorcery? Great, now damaging utility abilities pack just as much of a punch as straight damaging abilities. Conquerers? Wow, it took half a year for Bruisers to get a rune that worked for them, and it still isn't even as good as the old Fervor. (Although Keystones had similar problems to runes reforged). Has massively contributed to the rising trend of 'Generalisation', which has completely sidelined some classes from competitive play and enforced a team focused, bot centric meta.

Literally the only good thing about Runes Reforged is that you no longer have to pay for it. Outside of that, it's just enabled for even greater damage/mobility creep, and the choices honestly aren't even meaningful. The original Rune/Mastery system back in season 4 was more expressive.