Put the Forum link back.

You don't have to, just go to the 'General Discussion' link in the dropdown menu and go from there. You can reach any other sub-forum besides GD by clicking 'Forums' at the top of GD.

All the same links are still there; the forum link is just in the drop-down menu, rather than the top link.

If they want these forums then by all means lets get it over with and switch if they think its ready,

They know these forums aren't ready yet. That's why they're still called Boards Beta.

Then why is Riot slowly trying to phase out the main forums? They want us to use it and are using a slow phase out strategy by slowly making it harder and harder to get to GD.

I think it's less about making it hard to get to GD (the link to GD is still in the exact same place as before), and more about introducing more people to these forums. The response I expect to this:

But Hyrum, those are the exact same thing!

Well, not quite. making it harder to get to GD would be about forcing people to use Boards. Making it easier to find Boards simply introduces boards to more people who might like it.

It's the difference between forcing people to use it, and showing it to them, hoping they'll like it.