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ASUS is apparently killing the ability to root present and future Zenfone, Updated
(www.androidauthority.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
What Asus broke here was the bootloader unlocking. Without that, there's no custom ROMs or root. Root and bootloader unlocking mean different things.
Regarding root being a terrible security risk or not, I guess it will depend on the user? I never had any issues and only see it as one more thing that isn't as safe as it could be... my bootloader is unlocked, the recovery isn't stock, I'm running a custom ROM so I have to trust the developers/building process, etc.