For RP, I do not see any difference between 14 and 16, aka 2 or 3.
It's a mechanical/crunch consideration only.
Minmax/Powergame/optimization, these are not bad words to me. These are all saying the same thing.
'I am doing this for how it interacts with the rules.'
A +1 difference in your primary attribute is not worth any RP concern.
I'm a smart Orc, is as true at 14, as it is 16.
The mechanics and crunch are part of the roleplay experience, though. A fighter with 16 strength is objectively a better fighter in-universe than one with 14 strength because we're roleplaying by using the game of Dungeons and Dragons as a medium. There is no way within the rules of the game to not use the game statistics to resolve combat, which is why your attributes are a roleplay consideration.
Heck, you even acknowledge it as a roleplay consideration because you accept the racial ASIs as a part of your character.
But you're also arguing that our desire to alter our racial ASIs is NOT a roleplay consideration for reasons that seem pretty arbitrary to my eyes.
At the end of the day Dungeons and Dragons, all the mechanics and stats that make the game, are the medium we're roleplaying in. You can't really separate your character's roleplay from the statistics of the game. If you did you'd not be playing Dungeons and Dragons anymore, you'd be doing a narrative roleplay set in Forgotten Realms.
If Ceega, or Dench are super Intelligent, but dumped wisdom to the ground ... it seem a bit odd and therefore i would concider them to be more power-playing than role-playing.
I know those stats are not complementary conected, but it seem odd that one mental stat is sky high and other one completely forgoten. :-/
In my experience having your racial ASIs in the right spots actually adds a lot of flexibility to the other ASIs because of how the stats work. A +1 at 13 to reach 14 saves you 2 points in total, which can be placed in a tertiary or dump stat to round out your character's personality better.
Which is another reason I favor Tasha's as a roleplayer. It makes it easier to play a decently educated dragonborn druid or a halfling bard that didn't skip leg day and is decently fit. These small +1s don't matter as much mechanically but add nice flavor to the character that might be situationally useful down the road.
