A Thought on the Nature of Jungle Monsters

While reading a thread regarding the current state of the jungle meta on the old forum (original thread here, be warned, for it is quite lengthy) I had a few thoughts that I'd like to share here to see if anyone has any responses.

The initial point the thread wanted to make was that the only junglers that are favored these days are those that clear quickly and gank often. When presented with this point I realized that a possible reason for this was that the jungle does not directly impact your ability to win the game.

Jungle monsters provide no benefit other than resources. There is no reason to kill them other than to acquire those resources for your own team and to deny those resources to the enemy. This is not to say that those resources do not in turn assist you in victory. But there is a difference between farming wraiths and a minion wave. A difference between a tower and dragon. Take a wave pushes the lane and damages the tower. Taking a tower gets you one step closer to reaching the nexus.

Don't get me wrong, the resources available in the jungle are substantial and a team ignores them at their own peril. But those resources are only useful if you apply them to other aspects of the game. This is why fast and aggressive junglers are so popular. They farm the resources of the jungle as quickly as possible and then immediately and constantly apply those resources towards strengthening their lanes.

If you farm but don't gank, the resources you have acquired are not helping your team and thus may as well not exist. If you do not farm or gank as quickly as the opposition, your team has less resources applied towards victory. The jungle is not a lane. No matter how well you do in the jungle you will not be a single step closer towards winning the game.

So that's the idea. I don't actually know if it is necessarily true, and I certainly don't know if it's BAD. But there it is. What do you all think?