Before, or maybe at, level 1 your character isn't any more special than any other specimen of your race. Saying that culture is the a factor on your abilities is commentary from a real world perspective where we only have one race, and saying that the people of earth have different racial abilities because of the culture they came from is just the sort of thing I thought they were trying to avoid here. As for individual endeavor factoring into it, there already seems to be a system in place that represents that, character creation deals just with your starting attributes, your journey as an exceptional individual is already in the game. And again, everything you're saying deals only with the physical attributes, what about every races differing mental attributes.
Stat maximums or minimums are ideas I like, the highest a attribute can go for some races without magical or supernatural intervention. The kind that a group of adventurers typically find.
