Reading the many updates in this thread, I thought I would chime in with a couple of considerations. So here are my 3 pennies.
1) Roleplay vs Power-gaming.
When there is disagreement downstream, the source of it is sometimes rooted in the definitions. So I'll spell out mine explicitly.
Roleplay is about treating the character as its own person, with their story and evolution within the adventure and fictional world. In particular, making the character act in-character, and not according to the mood or knowledge of the player. Power-gaming is about making the character mechanically good, especially at doing what their class is supposed to be doing. This usually implies starting with 16+ on your main Ability Score. Min-maxing is a particular case of power-gaming, where one boosts all the useful Ability Scores and dumps the others.
By these definitions, roleplaying and power-gaming are independent. One can engage in neither, one but not the other, or both.
Of course. You seem to have missed that this entire tangent was derived from somebody -- I do not remember who -- saying that choseable stat advantages increased roleplaying potential. Not somebody saying that roleplaying and power gaming are antithesis.
