The State of Kalista

From a comment Meddler recently made it appears that the Riot Balance team believes that Kalista is in a good spot right now. Frankly from a statistical point of view I can't see how this conclusion can be made. Kalista's current place in the meta is simply that of teamfight initiator that lacks meaningful damage. The reason she is still occasionally picked in the competitive meta is that she allows top laners and junglers to pick from a much larger pool of champions, and most importantly not be the primary form of engage.

Now what is Kalista lacking that makes her so undesirable to DynamicQ(SoloQ). First and foremost she has no real spot inside of the AD Meta in SoloQ, She doesn't have fast and safe wave clear, she lacks sieging potential, She lacks poke damage, and she is outclassed in raw damage by almost every ADC, especially immobile AD's who have ranges very similar to her own which severely limits her trading ability.

Her only remaining strength is her teamfighting, which is also quite lackluster especially in the mid game which should be her strongest point. She is absolutely decimated by Mages who have higher damage and longer range, and crushed by bruisers who have higher damage and survivability in the mid game.

Are there any significant strengths in this meta that I'm missing, would love a reply from a member of the balance team.

For context, I'm a diamond 4 player who has been maining Kalista since season 5 but stopped playing her due to the last set of nerfs to her w.