You have 27 attribute points to express your exceptionalism and lineage. Completely removing the racial bonuses hurts roleplay, because an orc with +2 intelligence does not symbolize someone who studied their whole life as a wizard apprentice, it just means that for some magical reason this orc has a bigger brain. If you are playing an orc for everyone to recognize you as an extraordinary orc, but for some reason you don't consider an orc with 15 intelligence clever, well. You try to compare different species as if they were one. You are allowed by the game to grind to the maximum intelligence through levels as any race, this is what makes roleplay and your orc special, not starting with the same mental capacity as a gnome, which should be impossible because those were made as different species.

Why would we keep different races in the first place? May be I want to be so so special and have a tiefling tail, a dragonborn's scales, a githyanki's black dots on my ass, be short as a gnome and strong as a bugbear with the appropriate fur on my belly? Oh wait, I am not playing Spore, I am playing DnD 5e, what a relief..