I think his logic behind it was to break the lace health claw combo +shotty on jacks.
i did question why a lace would take out 3 slots if it's the most essential item... and after a while of thinking, i agree with it being multiple-slots. THE FACT IS, BECAUSE it's the most essential item, it should take a couple slots at least, as opposed the other weak items like sock, ring, mask, boot, orb, gloves, antiward, etc, because IF you really need the lace, it will take [xxx...] slots, and then u can fill the rest with either high level items, or 3 low level items.
if the lace is 1 slot, u will ALWAYS see someone with [x.....] that buys FIVE more items including the ability to constantly heal and regen and cloak etc...
IF someone wants to run around with SIX items on them, they will need to sacrifice buying a lace... now sometimes a lace can be ignored if there are no athenas/nightelf/shadowhunter/vagas in game, but u'll be taking a huge risk if someone swapped to those and made u lose all ur items bcos u got greedy.
HOWEVER, i cant say that "3" is the best number, MAYBE "2"... it needs testing, everything needs testing. there needs to be a way to break the lace health helm on human ( 2+3+3=8>6 this definitely prevents it), and the lace health claws on jack (2+3+2=7>6 this breaks it too), and allow more variable builds.
helm is the ONLY item GUARANTEED to be a 3-slot item because it's a luxury item that is usually added on top of any build.
personally i would love to see lace and health at 2-slots, while claws cat and helm go up to 3.