I'm writing this on my phone, so forgive errors and poor formatting. I also have only read this one article, so I am responding within the bubble of only this one piece without knowledge of anything else you've written. Forgive me if any of this has been addressed. And a final disclaimer: I am responding in hope of meaningful dialogue; I am in no way trying to be aggressive, pedantic, combative, sensational, etc. All that out of the way...

Some of what was written feels like it is closed off to innovation. I really enjoyed the article and your approach so much so that I intend on reading through your whole site, but there were points where it seemed your vision narrowed a little too much. For instance, you make the assumption that a defensive [which I read as "less engaging"] style of play was bad. You also assume that ganking and team fights are good, or - at the very least - desirable. I don't think either is inherently true of a lane pushing game, but I would concede that they are true of the lane pushing games currently out.

My bigger issue, however, is with the assumption that the only risk is in your personal [meaning your avatar's] safety. It could also be argued that it is a risk to pass on resources (xp, gold). While in the existing environment that is a risk with no real reward, that may not always be the case. Let's imagine you have a game like League of Legends, but it has an added feature: Players can spend time in their base making some strategic decisions. (For the sake of discussion, we'll say it's changing their minions to deal all magic damage instead of physical.) This is a meaningful decision a player gets to make, it's [potentially] another layer of strategy, and they are choosing to spend their time doing this at the opportunity cost of increasing their resources. It's a risk, but not one that ever puts the avatar's HP in play.

I get what you are largely going for and I like what you're writing, but you want to both "push boundaries forward" while also offering a slightly narrow definition. I'm hoping that by stating my case here, there will be one of two responses:

1. You explain why I'm wrong about defensive play always being a bad thing, the current gank/teamfight "structure" being the necessary one, and/or that putting HP at risk is vital to the genre. Or
2. We have a broader conversation about all of the ways current tropes can be challenged/done differently.