Champions innate Strength vs Item/Rune Scaling. Honest discussion

Where should power in the game come from. Your champions, items, runes?

In the game, most of your scaling comes from items and runes. A champion at lv 18 with no items and no runes is essentially nothing compared to a fully geared champion. I feel like this creates a balance nightmare, and that a small item lead can cause massive power spikes. Some champions receive power spikes from items that are frankly absurd.

Buff one lethality item by 5 lethality, and the item becomes so broken on 2-4 assassins that it breaks the meta in half, resulting in those specific champions being nerfed. Two tank items gains 15 armor/MR and suddenly TANK META.

I think this is a flaw from having 80% of your champions stats come from items, instead of a far more reasonable amount. At a certain point in the game, your champions are not using items, your items are using your champion.

Now I know, that re-balancing item power in the game would require a massive amount of work, but I think it would be well worth it.

Imagine the game where your items augment your champions power by a smaller amount. One AD items doesn't double your base AD, a tank doesn't come back to lane with 80% more HP at lv 10 and you soon find that he has nearly doubled in power from the last 5 minutes. A far more gradual scaling game that would fix a lot of issues, where you rely on your personal skill and champion, rather than your lv 6 Trinity force item spike that doubled your damage output.

Random thoughts :)