How to fix item inbalances without resorting to "Melee Only"

It's seems obvious that Riot isn't keen on slapping a bunch of "melee only" labels on items. I've come up with a middle ground that should make everyone happy. This is my proposed solution.

Make certain items scale based on AA range

You want a Sterak's on Twitch? Fine, but you only get a fraction of the shield at 700 range that a melee champ gets. The closer you need to get to attack, the more shield you get. Simple.

This is also a middle ground for shorter ranged champs like Gnar, Urgot, Teemo, etc.

Seems like a pretty easy solution to me and obviously can be applied to more items than Sterak's