Skill Cap Reduction

I don't understand why Riot seems to be lowering the skill cap in League of Legends. First (I think), they changed the way Ryze's passive works to make it easier to understand and use. Then, they changed the way many combos in the game work by buffering them; namely Alistar. And now they have changed muramana so that you no longer toggle it to your needs. All of these things were what separated the higher skilled players from the lower skilled players. I understand that Riot is striving to keep growing it's player base but lowering the skill cap would remove the challenge that many players strive for.