So while I agree that going around saying "Rito knows better, so shut up." isn't very nice or professional, that isn't what he said. He said "We have our reasons and we're likely not going back on them." in a much more eloquent way that I put it. Terra you always figure a way to put a nasty spin on things. Gotta hand it to ya; I could never do that, I suck at it.
The fact of the matter is that Riot's decided to take League in to a more stylised approach, pushing out in to a territory that they can comfortably call League. They want everything in it to be distinct, to be of a style that you look at it and you can say "That's League". What does this mean in the grand scheme of things though? What will be changed? What will be done for the sake of achieving this goal of Riots? While I don't have a specific answer for this, I do have one thing that might help to figure out what's gonna change and how it might change;
Nothing before the summer of 2012 is sacred.
That probably sounds weird so allow me to elaborate. Summer 2012 was when champions like Darius, Jayce and Diana were released marked a time when gears changed in Riot, from an art, story and gameplay perspective. For the art side, things began to look more defined and influenced by one another; the cast of characters began to get more relative aesthetic parity (Think the Shadow Isles aesthetic, Piltovian Aesthetic, Freljordian aesthetic and so on), animations got wilder and more exaggerated with a lot of hidden stretching, colour schemes changed and so on. This was also the time when champion updates came forward in full force. I personally refer to this time as the Darius period because Darius was the forerunner of a lot of this stuff; the art, animations, all of Darius set the bar for champions to meet.
In the grand scheme of things this means anything before this period of time is subject to change, because a lot of it likely doesn't adhere to Riot's new approach. That mid point of 2012 is where the gears changed and new styles and directions were taken, so while folks like Taric, Mordekaiser and Urgot are on the radar for reworks, folks like Lulu, Shyvana, Vayne, Talon, Wukong and Ahri might be up there to. Skins made in that time will receive changes, splash arts will be scrapped and replaced, the old will be replaced.
Is that good? Is that bad? Fuck if I know. I'd wager the specifics depend on a case by case basis as to whether they're good or bad decisions, but I feel like whatever comes Riot will pursue this new direction until this game is unrecognizable comparatively to its pre 2012 summer self. Typing that out now that sounds really sinister, but I dunno if it really is, because on the one hand we've got the Fiora shit storm from this, on the other:
Who all benefited so heavily from their updates.
I dunno, but either way whether my statement is actually flawed or perfectly accurate I'll still stick to it for now when figuring things out.
Nothing before summer of 2012 is sacred. Not even 
.
