User blog comment:Shigfugjum/Power Creep and the Fate of Older Champions/@comment-1920550-20150902025131

While you're not wrong in your reasoning, one thing you seen to have failed to grasp is the technological debt (tech debt) that Riot accumulated during the first 3 years of the game. The original game platform was built to support a few tens of thousands of players at best, yet it became a multi-million player game almost instantly. Now what this means is that due to their initial small scope for the game's evolution and Riot's own course as a budding game company, is that most of the initial game structure and champion development was fairly small and simple...champions such as Annie, Garen, Ryze, pre-rework Sion like you mentioned.

Thing is they weren't simple for simplicity's sake, they were simple because at the time Riot didn't have the tech or the knowledge to build more advanced, interactive champions. Champions like Annie, Ryze and Ashe quickly gave way to champions such as Orianna, Syndra and Vayne, with the spam of 1-2 years, so the evolution process was quick all things considered. I think that the issue of power creep should only be visited once Riot actually manages to clear the "tech debt" they accumulated. Once that happens then you can get a more clear notion of the game's power creep.