Morello - You guys talked a lot about buffing other toplaners to the "Renekton bar". Garen plz?

As you say, he's a straight-forward champion. There's almost nothing an opponent can do to prevent his abilities from taking effect, because three of them are self-buffs and the fourth is a point and click nuke, and since he's manaless, he's basically free to activate them whenever he likes with minimal opportunity cost (especially in the case of his q).

With that in mind, I'm having difficulty imagining a top lane in which he'd be viable that wouldn't be incredibly unpleasant for everybody not playing Garen.

He just needs a major buff to his lategame scaling

meh, I just dont understand why they ignore Garen.