MID

Then you've just proven my point, they have the rune control, you don't. This will hurt you and your team, and a big point about QoP is her mobility its one of the biggest reasons she's an excellent mid.

I'd probably vote for that too given my last post. Stable rune control is where the mid player's job starts. So if you fail there, you'll be in a rut throughout the rest of laning phase and possibly not acquire the domino effect. Now, it is possible to play well w/o runes, but it's just that your opponent will already have an advantage over you.

Well of course, and there are specific heroes that can deal without. Like I was saying though, it'll hurt your lanes.

Yeah it really depends on the shape of the game - personally I play pushers like Death Prophet or Shadow Shaman quite often in mid, for fast levels more than anything. You have slightly below average rune control against most common mids, but plenty of burst and push, with the idea being to get some ganks and possibly even take a tower too once you hit 6. Then back to mid until ulti is off CD.

It all depends ultimately what your team needs - if they're going well against their opponents and not being picked off by the enemy mid, they don't necessarily need a lot of help...if they're struggling however, sometimes a successful gank is a game changer for them. Rune definitely play a part in this - particular runes on particular heroes almost guarantee a kill.

I don't think you definitely need to bottle as a mid (especially if you're likely to come off 2nd best in rune control), but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be aware of them, push the lane just before they appear, try to deny them if nothing else...

Indeed, just swiping a DD from Nightstalker early on can change the outcome of the whole game.

Generally every mid laner that goes up to mid lane is a nuker/ganker that has easy rune control.

Reason being is that nukes are very powerful in the early-mid game; the faster these heroes can max their nukes, the better their lane control and ganks will be.

Queen of Pain and Storm Spirit are good examples of these, where Storm would leave Static Remnants out on lane while he scopes the rune, and Queen of Pain using Shadow Strike/ Scream of Pain to occupy mid lane while she would Blink to rune and back.

I have to vote levels here. Though I might not be a particularly knowledgeable player of higher levels, the reason behind having someone in mid is mostly because you want THAT person to have an early level advantage.

Yes, you want Rune control, but that is not SOLELY your task. That is why support is usually told to put a ward looking over the rune sites, right? It doesn't hurt as much when the enemy goes and nabs an Invisibility Rune when your entire team can watch them do it and retreat until it wears off.

Ganking is also fed by the level philosophy. Anyone can gank any lane, in theory, so why put someone in center for ganking? Mostly, so they have better tools/exp to take advantage of the ganking opportunities.

Tower pushing doesn't come up as high on the list for me. It is certainly helpful when the other team's center tower falls early, so their team starts to scramble to keep the defense up in center, but as far as that goes, the same can be true of any lane, if you are dominating enough.