My theory: With respect to all the discussion about BG3 rules and mechanics, and all of Larian's changes to them, I believe they are because WotC has decided the game needs to be based on OneDnD (or 5.5e or 6e or whatever name they eventually come up with) rather than 5e. OneDnD is hugely important to WotC, and I can't imagine their flagship video game not being based on it. However, WotC cannot officially label the game as a OneDnD game until OneDnD is officially launched, sometime late next year. So, until then, BG3 is in a state of limbo, a gray area with respect to edition/mechanics. All references to 5e are being removed by both WotC and Larian, and once WotC officially launches OneDnD next year, they will retroactively slap the OneDnD label onto BG3, and Larian will issue a series of patches updating the game to fully official OneDnD rules. And the changes already made to race in BG3 totally fit where WotC is taking the concept of 'race' in OneDnD, where race, like gender and alignment, becomes a purely cosmetic flavor thing with no mechanical impact on the game.
Relatedly, I have believed from day one that WotC's decision earlier this year to cancel five other ongoing DnD video game projects is also related to this issue. WotC wanted those games to also be OneDnD based games and not 5e based games. But they couldn't accomplish that under their current contracts, and so the only option left to WotC was to cancel those contracts. If any of those developers were willing to sit on their hands and wait a year and a half until WotC could potentially issue a new contract to continue developing their game under OneDnD rules, fine. If not, then their project is dead, because WotC at this point does not want anything DnD-related to happen based on 5e which they clearly want to phase out in favor of OneDnD.
