I am not opposed to a more interesting alternative than stat boosts or maluses, but I am also not in favour of removing them.
Attributes represent our characters capabilities, and those are and should be affected by our character race. If halfling can’t be a strong as an half-orc or needs to invest more to get to similar level - that’s fine, that’s a consequence of our roleplaying choice. I also think it is fine for some races to be optimal or sub-optimal for certain builds - as long as wider variety of builds is viable.
I think extra racial features are a nice bonus as they can give extra utility to an otherwise sub-optimal character, but I don’t think sub-optimal is wrong in a cRPG, as long as it brings something else of value (reactivity, secondary stat bonus etc.)
