why cant we choose our own flat stats in runes instead of forced stats

Removing runes was just another one of Riots ways of destroying a fun aspect of league.. This new "rune system" is/are just glorified mastery page changes.

Because Runes Reforged were going to bring new exciting personalized gameplay patterns

At this point, I question why the trees even give stats. I get that Riot wanted to preserve some of the stat-building aspects of the old rune system, but at the end of the day, the rigid, pre-selected bonuses we get are neither the focus of the rune system, nor any real driving choice in it, so much as just more power. I don't go into Domination + Sorcery for the 10.8 bonus AD, I go for that combination because I want a Domination keystone, plus some runes from both trees. Even if I were a champion who really needed the AD (or AP), if the bonuses don't fit my champion, I'm not going to go for a sub-par rune setup just to get to those stats. There is therefore no meaningful choice or gameplay generated by these stats, imo.

Part of the problem here as well is that items as a system have failed to offer proper stat customization: with itemization putting more emphasis on unique, rune-like passives, as well as actives, rather than stats, champions find themselves forced to go for a particular item setup, even if it's not exactly what they want to tune their champion. There are no truly fine levers in place to get exactly the stats in the amounts one would want, which makes it practically impossible to have champions deviate from their preexisting stat setups.

While this wouldn't be a perfect fix, I'd personally advocate removing stat bonuses from Runes Reforged, and instead increasing starting gold slightly: the net result in the early game could be very similar, because instead of getting, say, 10 AD from one's rune page, one could obtain it via a Long Sword. Later on, there would be an extra degree of choice in that those starting items could then accelerate the purchase of others, meaning one could potentially choose a less efficient early build (e.g. a Long Sword instead of an extra Doran's Blade), in exchange for faster scaling later on. In the very later stages, this could also result in less free power overall, which would itself help with at least some portion of the damage creep we've experienced.

Runes reforged are just a glorified simplied mastery tree with fewer options, and stat runes automatically chosen for you. It made the system so much more braindead it's actually sad. They could just have put those as "masteried reforged" and let people choose and personnalise their runes. Well if that meant a majority copied what the pros used, idgaf, just let the few who care use /lvl armor, /lvl mr, /lvl health, cdr flat, cdr/lvl, lethality, lifesteal, etc. at their will It doesn't cost anything...

There was a bit more mystery with the old system. I mean, unless you were exceptionally good with memorization and math, it'd be pretty difficult to look at a players' base stats and decipher what runes and/or masteries and plan accordingly (in game). There are fewer choices in this set, but it does allow for you to make important decisions both before and during game.

You chose predator on a support? You're roaming more often than in lane.

Took domination as your secondary on Galio? You're more interested in affecting sidelanes and team fights (imo).

Those interpretations were a bit tougher to make in the old system.

God, this makes me miss old runes. So many builds opened up due to it.

RIP Crit Garen.

Totally agree. I used to be able to start 25% CDR on Nasus for those sweet stax. 15% from runes, 5% from masteries, and 5% from ancient coin. My record stax at 20 mins was about 580. Now I can't use that playstyle because Rito likes change for change's sake. Now the highest I can get is about 450. Sorely disappointed that Rito made this change, but I still play Nasus occasionally.

Just make the old runes free ffs...there was diversity,yesterday i couldnt play aatrox jungle because i didnt have enough attack speed...