I posit that the primary reason why female au ra players chose face 1 is essentially because it is the closest to looking human-like, other race/gender character models will have a face that is meant to appear more human.
The overly sharp or otherwise low poly nose, causes the face 1 character model to appear oddly and very different to usual under common sources of lighting present in the game, although this is a common issue with most characters, the low poly nature of face 1's sharpness makes this effect worse than it should be.
The very mild rounding of the nose might simply be a side effect of a higher polygon count and will help fix face 1's lighting issues, and a higher polygon count is simply better for the game's future.
I think the only change I'd like to see from the benchmark is the return of lip gloss.
