I get what you are saying.
But it wasn’t about the buff. It was far from unique.
Classes like Shaman and DK have water walking as a built in. (Warlocks had built in water walking with their class mount from MoP > Legion) And anyone can pop a Water Walking potion for that same functionality.
The only purpose this system accomplishes is getting people to use Water Striders less, by making them worse.
In my opinion, it’s a ton of misplaced effort.