I didn’t get very high up in rank but I got a lot of success with it. I used to play in the Chinese server and ranking there was quite hard for me personally, mostly because of bad luck. However I went in very long win streaks ever since her release and had a lot of fun with her until WP Varya took over the meta for some time.

You have a point, but one thing you’ve overlooked is that if you’re farming correctly you could get Alternating Current before you even get to level 6, which is a huge spike. In addition you’ll need more attack speed to proc her perk anyways.

It's only 150 gold, and gives you sustain enabling you to stay in lane longer, so you don't have to Port back and giving you more gold overall. So no, it isn't a waste as long as you can make use of it. 150 gold in the long run is not really a deficit, as it ends up recovering the gold many times over.