Why did you change one of the best older backstories in the game?

Dear Riot worldbuilding team; Please give me a few minutes and hear me out. A lot of people are distraught and I want you to get clear context on the frustration we're feeling here.

*most of this is about the human varus being replaced. I have no quarrel with the darkin's addition or anything Varus' old lore was beloved as one of the best old lore out there. Not only has he got virtually no association with the League of the old lore, but he's got a compelling story of vengeance and then is left with nothing but the death of his family, a slow corruption killing his soul, and a hollow sense of loss after the flames of his retribution have died. So why?

He didn't need to be changed, and he's clearly an entirely different character now. It really wouldn't have taken that much to just write out the story of him fulfilling his duty and choosing between his duty and his village, then turning back in vengeance, adding in the obvious missing piece, the fact that the creature was a darkin. Instead you made a melodramatic love story between two guys we have no connection to and then rewrote (the human)Varus' vengeful and lost character to be this hopeful duo setting out for distant lands with hope for fighting against the demon. Nobody they even cared about died. The noxians went straight to the temple, and they personally prevented themselves from killing their loved ones.

It's not just the character's person that's changed, it's the entire context for the character. Old varus was about duty fallen to vengeance and the hollowness that follows vengeance, this one is about love prevailing and, at the end, a glimmer of hope.

The human inside isn't our character anymore. I wish that somebody on the lore team had realized this a bit sooner. Probably should have noticed something when you received backlash on the pbe. You've done a great job on reworks so far, but I think you failed this one.

I love you Riot and I want hear your reasoning behind this complete rewrite, and why you didn't even bother to ask the community their opinion on the old lore.

##edit because I am really passionate about lore and I've been writing walls of texts in comments and not submitting them but i'm tired of not expressing my sorrow and love for the lore

Consider the older champions from the same era like Sejuani, Viktor, old Xerath, and Heimerdinger, who were all super shallow and unrelatable characters (on release, many of them are much better now). Sejuani was (even more than now) just interested in seeing strength prevail over the freljord with no real drama or connections; Viktor was a super obvious and cliche bad guy; old Xerath was some archmage who was hunted and imprisoned for an unknown reason (basically because he was crazy strong, again without context), and Heimerdinger was just a smart yordle who interacted with some human institutions. At least he was quirky enough to have some charm. All of the void creatures of the old pre-retcon lore had idiotic backstories where they just kind of showed up for no reason; kog'maw literally walked up to the door of the institute of justice. Caitlyn just made herself sheriff and that was that, Ezreal explored the world for the heck of it, Jayce was gary stew in the living flesh, Kennen and Akali are ninjas basically chosen as children, and there are lots more examples of shallow backstories.

Varus on the other hand had a pretty clear and interesting tale; he was a sentinel on duty to protect his heart and mind against the corruption, and to defend it from falling into the hands of the enemies of Ionia (eg. noxus). Noxus invaded, and Varus had to choose between his duty and his family and all his loved ones in the town below. He chose duty, telling himself that the guard must be able to handle it and that the alternative was far worse, that if Noxus had the corruption as a weapon, far more would die. He defended the corruption to the last breath, but on the verge of death and failure to protect it, he saw his village burning and knew his family was dead. He had failed both his duty and his loved ones. He broke and gave in to his rage and unleashed the corruption's rage, killing the invaders and leaving himself with nothing. No duty, no honor, no future, no life, and no family.

The tale is about a man who had truly lost everything, and has to figure out what to do next. This lore is so much deeper than anything else that was out at the time, and while it's kind of edgy, it was clearly compelling and could be expanded on easily in the future of the League universe as he becomes either a force of vengeance or a problem where he loses control of himself more than he already has.

The new lore is about two stupid kids who don't even think before throwing themselves into corruption, and don't really lose any meaningful family in the process. They clearly show self control afterwards, sparing some random noxian, their mother and some poor old guy, and then speaking very clearly to Kai's mother, and then literally setting out into the sunset. There's less darkness and maturity in the human side of the character.

Something you have to understand as well is that much of what makes up older characters like older Blitz and Orianna is fan-created personality attached to them. This is not easily broken. Orianna was supposed to end up being like a poor facsimile of a human, made by a desperate man to recreate his daughter, but failing and making something inhuman and incapable of real emotion; a fake human. This was evidenced by her glados-like lines about human emotion and fear. Instead the community turned her into something that knew it wasn't complete, and truly wanted to be human but knew it could never be Corrin's daughter. The new Orianna lore is so beautiful because it's clear that they understood this, and made her interact with a clockwork puppet in the hopes that it also wanted to be human, only to be convinced that it was just programmed to be that way.

I want you to see this. I found this years ago... This is very special to me and I hope you enjoy it. It is a shining example of how player perception can change a somewhat shallow character into something compelling, beautiful and alive. The parts containing blitzcrank's dating service are a sly wink to the old Journal of Justice, bless its heart. http://imgur.com/a/swG5V

There are a few articles that I've found before that pry a bit into Varus' backstory, clearly compelled as I was by a simple story of loss. This is the first one I could find, attached strangely enough to a comic strip that is otherwise rarely serious at all. It is covered by the next few pages in the comic. The rest of it is pretty funny and I recommend it but that's beside the point. http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1550189?pool_id=7489

Here's another one from that same strip about Lulu. http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1520966?pool_id=7489