I'm suspicious that Graves was left super strong for months in the jungle just to justify this skin

Graves was so overtuned for months that it now seems frustrating that Riot more than likely allowed him to be stronger than all the other junglers to justify the victorious skin. Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems like an unhealthy think to do if that was in case the reason for his 6+ month domination of everybody else. I think I wasted my time writing 2 dozen posts on boards about how it was shocking that Graves was allowed to have a faster clear, be tankier, and do more damage than all the other junglers while maintaining full health, scaling well into all levels of the game and having the ability of being ranged.