I'm more of a believer that the species/race you choose should be, purely, cosmetic in choice. It's never felt good to play a game wherein I want to be x but I want to play y class and the combination I like the most aesthetically, is one of the worst. It always feels like a very arbitrary limitation that tends to reference "lore", but that's also a flimsy stance since not everyone in a particular race/species would be purely homogeneous and behave the exact same and thus not all individuals would have The Same Strengths, so forcing the issue makes it feel even less realistic than what's implied and is more of an old relic from D&D than anything else.

If the traits are useless, then I'd ask why spend time developing them instead of developing something more interesting?