"We are ok with ___ being strong because most people aren't frustrated by it / it has counterplay."

First, if most people don't feel on edge when a lee sin or ahri locks in on the enemy team, its because they are acclimated to the particular flavor of grief it causes them, not because they don't leave a bad taste. When you've been eating shit for years and haven't had a chance to get the taste out of your mouth, you can't appreciate how awful it is.

Then a new garbage flavored bubblegum is forced into your mouth and you are made to chew it, and although you aren't choking on the shit that is lee or ahri, you now have to bear the rancid slimy texture of the snot that is malzahar support or ziggs bot carry. But you aren't ready for this level of disgust, you've trained yourself to ignore the taste of shit, not the taste of snot.

Riot lets some champions be popular / have more power in general than others because they play with it and against it with the rest of us, and the shit is in their mouth too; it distorts the way they think about the game. The only people who can really appreciate it with an untainted palatte are people who aren't acclimated to it-- newcomers. I'm not a newcomer, but I know quite a few, and every single one of them believe that RIOT plays favorites with a small pool of champs and they reached that conclusion by themselves.

Second, this is a team game. Everything has counterplay in this game. Trust me you'd know if it actually didn't. If you want to know what actual lack of counterplay looks like, look up release Jax.