We don't specifically need "Variant Human," and/or multiple human options. The important thing is that Humans have abilities that put them roughly equal in power with other races.
Proficiency in polearms is certainly not comparable to all the cool features that Dwarves, Dragonborn, Elves, etc get. As others have mentioned it isn't useful for most classes as they wouldn't use polearms, and other classes that would use polearms...already get proficiency!!
