Its not soft; its being vindictive. You know you can punish someone with reports. Play games where you dont really have that option, and its amazing how thick your skin is. Its weird how that works. Like me personally; I can go play a game without report options, and get flamed to the ends of the earth, and it doesn't really bother me. But in league, it ACTUALLY bothers me. Because I have recourse for action. I have no way of punishing those people in other games, so I just have to deal with it. But in league, I have the report system, so if that guy says one thing out of the way to me, you bet your ass I'm dropping the hammer on him as soon as we get to post-game; out of pure spite. Its actually kind of interesting how that works and affects me, and other players.
Now, I'm not saying the system should be gone. Some people need reported. But the system is abused to "punish" other players in vindictive ways. Which is why nearly every single game I'm in, someone is asking for reports on someone. Its rare, I mean REALLY rare, that I'm in a game that no one asks for reports or threatens a player with reports.
If I made one change to the system, it would be punishments for false reports, more punishment for threatening with reports. Nowadays, report spam is used as a strong-arm tactic to get someone to play like you want them to. Threatening players with reports is one of the most toxic things in LoL. Its a strong-arm tactic, and nearly every game that happens, that game is over. It just falls apart. Those people asking for reports in all chat should have the hammer dropped on them, and told why. If more and more people would get banned for using reports in vindictive ways, then the system would be better overall. Less trash reports clogging up the system.