I haven't read the whole thread, but I have read some of the stuff that Ironstylus has addressed in this thread. To me, what is being stated about character design is very interesting. And I like to see the thought process being made in the riot feedback.

I want to address specifically character designer about how they are pushing proportions over shapes and it would be helpful to go back to pushing the basic shapes: Triangles, Circles, and squares. If you go back to early female character their shapes were pushed immensely to tell the story of the character with their silhouette alone. As an example, I am going to compare MF to Zyra (Old good design vs New Bad design [shape wise]). MF is very well designed character and her shapes represents her personality. She is an energetic female that runs into action and displays her presence. In short, she is a very active female. The designers pushed an abundance of triangles onto her shape.
It's best to address this in a bullet point format, so the list is as follows:
-triangle hat
-triangle lip of her boots
-triangle boot point
-triangle cloth around her forearm
-triangle thigh (her knee is abnormally small)
-Her stomach is a triangle (wide hips, skinny ribs)
- All the pushed triangle shapes of her overall volume are pushing up into her face and out through her hat making a statement that she is outgoing person.
-To represent her sturdiness in the face of danger, her torso is squared and shock and aww are squarish cylinders.
MF is one of my favorite designed female champs. Also, she WAS well animated. I will address that when animation is a topic, till then I will stick with character DESIGN.

Now lets break down Zyra's personality and Design. Zyra is an old mythical creature that captured an unsuspecting victim and took over their body. Zyra is an introvert in nature because of her life as a plant, and she is a smart creature that plots out her actions and executes them. Her design makes her look extrovert, energetic and bland. It's going be hard to break down the shapes of this character because her design is muddy, so I will try to point out her overall shape:
-Square Stomach
-Square torso
-parallelogram thigh (they are kind triangle too, it's very confusing)
-parallelogram calves (they are kind triangle too, it's very confusing)(Also, the legs are too skinny for a character that has been "rooted" for most of it's life, If anything her legs should be much bigger then the rest of her body, not lankier)
-Squared bicep
-Triangle Forearm
- Roundish triangle thorns (a very bad decision on a sinister character)
-Triangle head (point downwards, a very strong decision about a character that is "rooted")
-Overall she is top heavy which is counter intuitive to her lore and her personality. I could be wrong, and that's a problem when it's not clear in the character design.

MF shows that the character designer made strong decisions about her shape and how the shape represents her personality. On the other hand, Zyra is a bad example of effective character design, it feels like strong decisions of her personality and shapes were note made, and it shows. I am sure you guys put equal amount of time into both. But it shows that the older champion design was asking all the right question, how can we convey her past and personality with shapes. And the new champions shows that the character designers were asking the wrong question, how could we make her more plant like? instead of how to tell the story of the character using shapes.

Also, stop making male character that are primarily V shaped torso.

Anyways, this is my two cents, and I hope it was clear. And, It's hard to write about the conceptual psychological property of shapes and how to correct character designs to reflect a stronger knowledge of the subject. On a personal note, I am currently delving deeper into my understanding of the topic myself.

TL;DR Please push the basic shapes of champions.

You're completely right, it's just the way they dress has an impact in perception. Why would a cold blooded murderer need to dress so skimpily if they're so independent? It's just implying like something's going on behind the institute of war (omg conspiracy). But it's also really interesting how they're just doing that to survive or move up the ladder, but it gets kind of weird and repetitive when nearly all the female champions are doing that...

no one could resist his smoldering gaze

I like variety, but to be honest I'm having a lot of trouble saying "yaaaaaay, conservatism..." Especially when it comes to covering and being ashamed of skin showing. Ever has the best art been celebrations of the human form... but I already gotten a smattering of monstergirls, (adorable, and striking <3) so I guess I can stand a few years of skin paranoia on a single game I play.

The wheels are already turning, so we'll see if Riot are the first people ever to manage to pull off the "rainbow coalition" art design theory successfully without it impacting creative vision and making it feel forced. For your next male champion might a suggest a spindly 6' 110 lb mage of some sort? Raistlin from Dragonlance comes to mind.

Actually, that's probably my main question, how do you intend to redress numbers to a mathematical average without putting certain aspects of artistic scope off limits either overtly or by more subtle 'changes in direction?' (though with a company wide email already having gone out, I guess the 'overt pressure' part is already out of the bottle =P) Whose averages matter? gender? build? ethnicity? culture? what's our ratio of beefy men to spindly men? how many asians are there vs how many blacks? do we have a latino champion? This math averages bottle is super super deep, and super super dangerous. Just tread carefully, I can't think of anyone whose ever done it right. =P

Might I suggest a sideways shift towards more adorable/cute? LoL is 80% Grimdark already... It'd be hard to see it get even worse. Besides, it seems and Lulu/Teemo/Fizz have been pretty well received by all sides particularly for design and they're not even on the sexiness chart. Heck, people still pick Lulu in tournies even if every team who picks her loses that game >_>

TLR: This is very hard to do, and can snowball very easily so please be careful.

Maybe make some adorable champions? I enjoy those.

This is a fantastic summary and well worth quoting so that more people see it.

Logged in for the first time in months to upvote/comment. Hopefully you accept my invite so we can discuss why the conventional view, of women, is still marginalized in the video game culture.
I havent met few people who understand that there is psychology behind everything humans do including our fantasy world. People spend countless hours on this games and still treat with it like its nothing. I dont spend an hour doing anything and pretend like it doesnt affect my life in some way.

I'd kill for an Ahri skin that grew up from young to middle age, progressively getting more tails as she leveled up / grew older. And if there was fan-service... I would be fifty times more likely to buy it. And seeing how Ahri is my favorite champion and she does not yet have a fan-service skin yet, It would be a sure thing.

So fifty times a sure thing for a fan-service Ahri skin. Pool Party Ziggs doesn't count.

Morgan Freeman champion needed.

Syndra is the only female that doesn't look like a kid, and she's not too old either.

Syndra is a total skank-bucket