User blog comment:Mineko Charat Lucky/A Monologue About How Attack Speed Reduction was a Neglected CC Before/@comment-4922088-20121228062625

I think another large chunk has to do with how many auto-attackers are actually on a team.

Early season-two there were really very few on a team, several teamcomps only had one. Yes several champions were unerappreciated at the time, EZ and Malph for sure, because of what they could do, but AS reduction was not as strong because it had a smaller impact on the team.

Example of team early s2-

Kennen(top), Morgana(mid), Ashe/Soraka (bot), Rammus (Jungle)

Example of a team later s2 -

Shen (top), TF(mid), Graves/Lulu(bot), Maokai (jungle)

Suddenly though a lot more auto-attackers wound up on a team, really changing the impact of those slows. Plus, the true underappreciated point, people realized that EZ could basically win any duel bot lane simply because of his AS slow. He lost his slow not because it was too strong, but honestly because really in any meta unless you are playing AP EZ he will always be against an ADC in lane and being able to completely shut them down in exchanges in lane was just way too strong.

It's the same reason Corki lost his blind. A champion can be a hard counter to a role but shouldn't be the hard-counter to their own role.