I somewhat understand the choice to add the loot chests in HotS but, I can tell you right now, I will never buy a single loot chest.

I have spent hundreds of dollars on LoL in my time, and most of that money has been on skins. If so want a certain skin badly enough, I will be willing to pay a lot for it, but not allowing me to pay real money for a specific skin that isn't featured in HotS is a very bizarre business decision to me.

I have zero interest in spending money on an awful RNG chest that will likely have nothing I care about in it. And I am certainly not going to spend a bunch of money on chests just to try to amass enough shards to buy something decent.

The new loot chest system is fun, but unless you let me spend my money to buy any skin whenever I want to with the gems, you are unlikely to ever get any money from me again.

I don't know how many others feel this way, but my friend I normally play the game with feels the exact same way, so there are bound to be many more.