Items don't force players to made decisions, and they are out of control

Items in general do too much and are too, well general--jack of all trades often.

You should be giving up some potential in one area if you pick a certain item vs another.

For example, Armor pen items should be specialty items for when you need to be able to kill a tank(s), but getting that armor pen item should make you less effective against say, squishy champions, that will respond more to raw damage and higher AD, and movement speed that might be associated with those items. Every armor pen item seems like a catch all general first item for too many champions, what with their AD and movement speed bonuses and how they work with their kits.

Perhaps one of the reason why its so hard to balance the game and champions is because items do TOO MANY THINGS? They create an unbelievable amount of variables making it hard to see all ends when you change a champion.

Also, they homogenize champions. Champions become more similar than different when they purchase the same items.