Increasing my Wisdom at level 4 doesn't really help if I want my character to start out incredibly wise.
I agree that it is good to have races in general be different. Orcs, as a whole, are stronger and dumber than humans, etc. But PCs are supposed to be the exception to the norm, the especially talented members of their races, which should apply to ability score bonuses.
Saying it will make or break a character is exaggerating. But it will make you less effective, as your spell attacks and DCs will all take -1 penalty from what you'd want. It doesn't matter if you're playing with other power gamers or not because both groups will likely have their main stat at 16 (assuming point buy).
To rephrase my overall point: Yes, it is technically power gaming to want this +1. But it also improves roleplaying, allowing players to have more character options. And I think the latter outweighs any negatives from homogenizing races or power gaming.
No, if you want to roleplay you will roleplay a goblin with all its advantages and disadvantages because that makes him a goblin. He is incredibly wise for his people, which is also what makes him PC material exceptional, but he can't match a wise human (yet he is still more wise than 90% of humans he will meet and certainly more wise than nearly all goblins). So no, it doesn't improve role playing at all. It just allows powergamers to pretend that they are role playing.
