User blog comment:QuantumFeint/Botlane meta - where did all the supports go?/@comment-24613667-20140909064430

A "support" is a player/champion who enables their lane partner to win the lane, enables the team's damage dealers to deal their damage in fights, helps team mates survive those fights, and ensures that their team has superior vision control. All of these things can be achieved through CC, healing, shields, disruption, etc. Soroka can provide great sustain in lane, but if the opposing Annie support just stuns and kills her, then her abilities mean nothing. Additionally, a support like Soroka is capable of providing her team with the tools to succeed, but in a very passive way compared to champions like Annie or Thresh. What does Soroka do if the enemy simply runs away? What does she do if an enemy stuns and jumps her team mate? She has no crowd control of her own other than a silence and can only provide healing at a very slow rate. On top of all of this, aggressive supports can also provide heals, shields, slows, etc. through itemization, as you said (Mikael's, Locket, Randuin's), potentially making them just as potent as the 'traditional' supports.

Sometimes healing and sustain is the best option, sometimes crowd control is, but it's all about adapting to who you're playing against. With the ridiculous number of high-damage dealers that are being played today, CC is usually the best option, so supports who provide that are currently the most effective. Of course, no one likes an Annie support who's 12/2/3, but that's a problem with the player, not necessarily the champion (however obscene her damage may be). It's all about playing as a support and not a kill-hungry carry in a side lane.

P.S. As someone else said below, people get too obsessed over tags and details.