And you don't get penalized easily at all

You can get penalized for competitive banter now. You don't have to use any insults or slurs. Stuff like "noob" "kiddo" or "you're bronze" can get you penalized since 2018.

Getting honors back isn't about playing games, it's about being honored regularly. You can play 700 games but if you're only getting honored in 10 games, you'll never get it.

And this is why the system is bad. People honor the best player on the team. You can be a nice person, or just not use the chat at all anymore, and still won't get any honors. So you will never level up your Honor.

You also won't get the bonus from everyone honoring someone every time, since there is often at least 1 tilted person on your team who skips honors.

All in all, 6+ months to get back to being able to earn rewards is ridiculous. No wonder LoL is losing players.