Most people will just be like "Oh well, Speed and Con are both good, so I'll just go with whatever I get" instead of "Well shit, I'm a rogue, I guess I HAVE to be heartless."
I think this is a good argument for removing the bonuses entirely. How do the bonuses make the traits any more interesting at all?
The point that people have been making is that they don't want to mix the roleplaying and the combat. They don't want to be making a choice while roleplaying that will affect their build in combat. You're essentially arguing the same thing -- you don't want to be prevented from making a choice when you feel the reward is not rogue-appropriate or whatever.
I don't believe that choices should be equally valuable, and I believe that the whole point of having stats is to enable min-maxing. However, this should allow for different choices to benefit different strategies or play styles. Choosing between speed and constitution should be an important choice.
So I think the best solution is to focus on providing roleplaying rewards for roleplaying decisions.
I'm fine with them taking away stat bonuses entirely, and I think you're right that stats don't really make them more interesting, but if they insist on keeping them, DO make them fairly equally valuable so the focus is on the roleplay instead of the stats. Or make the stat bonuses unequal, but as the OP said, make certain traits have consequences, whether they're roleplay only or reward/stat consequences (though as he said, that could ultimately lead to a further min-max focus.)
The decision between Speed and Con is an important choice for sure, but all classes benefit from both. You might prefer, say, Con on a tank, or Speed on a mage, but it's not like Con on a Mage or Speed on a tank is useless. All but the most hardcore min-maxxers are far less likely to redo a situation if they got Con instead of Speed compared to +20% backstab hit chance vs not getting that since that is a large, specific bonus. Point is, at least attempt to equalize them while not necessarily homogenizing them like Obedient vs. Independent.
