AP itemization is boring, yes, but the problem is that you never feel like you have any agency at all in lane. Riot made melee champs, specially bruisers, practically immune to poke by overbuffing doran shield. Battle mages and mid range mages were supposed to be top laners as well, but entitled bruiser mains cried so fucking much because they don't know how to play the early laning phase and greed for CS. Riot listened to that and made being ranged a glorified disadvantage since you're squishy as fuck, have no mobility and can hardly poke anyone out of lane even if you dump your entire mana bar on them. I remember when playing things like Viktor, Lissandra, Ryze or Swain top wasn't troll as fuck, but alas, here we are.

There's also the problem that somewhere around season 8 Riot made spells aggro minions, so what ends up happening is you waste mana to poke, minions fuck you up, the lane pushes towards them, which is exactly what they want, both laners lose a ton of HP but the melee champ gets to sit back and relax farming safely near tower being passively healed back to full and the damage you took sticks with you.

THAT is the problem with mage satisfaction. The fact Riot completely botched the item rework and made AP items infinitely less interesting is beside the point. You hardly ever feel rewarded for being aggressive, you are afforded no mistakes at all, you need to have a near perfect sense of tethering, while most melee champs can do a bunch of fuckups and never be really punished for it, then they press a single button to get right on your face and there goes your "advantage".