You seem genuine so I'll give it a go. Most people just downvote those with different opinions, haha.
Summoners was a cool gimmick looking from the outside in; kind of rationalizing the game-part, not succeeding completely though. Even with a lot of effort that rationalizing won't add much to the story, only obstacles to write around. I still think it's a cool thing to have on the client and such. The idea is nice, but for a competitive, massive multiplayer game like LoL the marriage between gameplay and lore can't be held too close without them limiting each other, as opposed to, say, an RPG.
I have always read the bios, judgement, JoJ , wiki and red-posts about the lore in LoL. World-building is my favorite kind of lore. When we got a little-world building I got excited, except when it feel too one-off. To me a lot of the writing that was meant as development felt superficial, though. JoJ sometimes demeaned characters, like Janna's underwear-thing and Sivir's drunk driving.
The attempts at serious development were commendable but rarely felt holistic; they took place in the world but didn't spring up from it. I hope that isn't too vague, but imagine a pre-written RPG campaign thrown into a separate game-world, or something. That's what it felt like; some writer doing their story which just happens to be thrown into Valoran. The JoJ development could also be pretty confusing and often felt aloof. The Event Freljord-lore just felt like a more holistically built version of the JoJ Freljord-lore, and what the Freljord should represent. A lot of credit goes the the artists for that storytelling, too.
Now, the argument that is always brought up: the IoW was limiting the story. I really believe it did stop a lot of different stories from making sense. I get how it allowed for some particular kinds of stories to happen, but to me those would have felt contrived; Cho'Gath laning with Annie would've been too manufactured. Summoners were well suited for fan-fiction, I assume, but I don't think that should stop the writers from making the canon better in it's own right. Fan fiction should be what it is, and doesn't have to conform fully to the canon anyway.
In the old canon with the IoW existing, the world's story had ended just before the present. The lore was mostly just background, the IoW had or was in the process of fixing all the old problems. There could have been new conflicts that emerged, but they would have been about the institute. (Hogwarts-esque, I imagine.) The rest of the world was at a standstill. Everything happened through the IoW, so every other place was made irrelevant.
Summoners were, in a very real sense, the main actors before, not the Champions. I think the champions and their place in the world should be the main characters, and not be institutionalized, glorified gladiators with little to no agency. "-and then he/she joined the institute." is not a satisfying end to have on every story.
The new direction has a real potential to explore, establish, develop and act through the factions of the world, where their histories are explored through their place in the present day. the events for the Shadow Isles, Freljord and Shurima tell of a deeper history instead of vague "Rune Wars" being the backdrop of the current Valoran.
In the end, I'm hopeful about the narrative growing because I was here during the Art Department's journey from questionable designs and paintovers to the thorough development and splashes we get today. I think it will take time, but I have time. The narrative people I've seen commenting seem to have good intentions, which is enough for me to be patient.
Ask away if you don't understand any of the particulars.
I miss my 
