That is because......and like i said when it came out and i still believe to this day, the ryze ult was completely their way to try to subliminally promote the "team" play that they are trying to push. yes it is a team game but they are trying to push people into needing to use voice chat. The changes to him was uneeded....he was already a popular pick on the Pro level and he gets changed too often. There are many other champs that havn't been touched in years that are in more need of changes.
People fail with his ult because they try to do what they seen done in all the videos that came out when he was just on PBE.......but most of those videos were people playing around in custom games letting the other team pull the stuff off. Or games with people in voice chat.
You cant pull that stuff off just using regular pings and game chat. because by the time people realize what you are pinging and see what you are saying in the chat and react to it....the window of opportunity is gone.
So because of that the majority of the time i see his ult is actually used its him using it solo to escape.