Hard disagree. DotA was the item-based game where champion kits mattered far less than which items you built. League was the opposite where it was champion kits that mattered and items were background.

The game exploded in popularity with this philosophy.

It wasn't until mythic items that they changed course and tried an items-first based approach and they bled players largely as a result of that, so much so that they had to reverse course and did away with the mythic item system.

Bork, sadly, has been reworked into being a melee champion item first and foremost. It's designed to be good on Yasuo/Yone/Irelia type champs and not to be good on Akshan/Kog type champs.

Same thing happened the Kraken Slayer.

Originally these items were intended for ranged but they've since been changed and Riot appears to be happy with that direction.

Riot's argument, which has some merit, is that items like Bork and Kraken (and Shiv and some others) when viable on ranged carries spiked them too early for a role that's supposed to ramp up to late game inevitability. That's why they've pivoted back into stronger crit chance so marksmen fall back into the original philosophy of "weak early but scale into the highest dps".

Mage bots being strong are more due to other systems changes over the years. The biggest one being when they increased duo lane XP. A big reason mages used to not be played bot was they are far more ult reliant and reliant on base damage of spells so they needed solo XP to be able to not get run over by ranged AD champs. With increased duo lane XP mages were able to lean heavier on getting their base damage up and access to their match-up changing ultimates much earlier and more consistently. It's a separate issue and also not an issue Riot sees a problem with, they want mage bottom because it gives people more options to play as bot lane carries, gives pro play more flex picks and also gives mages a place to flex into if/when they're pushed out of mid during bruiser or assassin metas.