I dont think anyone felt 'gimped' by the old style of ability scores tied to race. This has never been a complaint I ever heard until recently by a certain sect of people that has zero logic. Different fantasy races being better/worse than other fantasy races makes perfect sense. Real world politics should have nothing to do with it. The strongest halfling should not be as strong as the strongest halforc (not counting magic and other factors). It's just that simple. But, that's the way it. We gots to sucks it up in BG3.
Humans and half elves are picked for the most obvious reason - they are human and half human and they most look like humans. Same why male characters are more popular than female characters - more male players are playing. If more women were playing the base character would be female.
This change has zero to do with roleplaying and zero to do with sales.
You've made quite a few posts, some of which I've been sorely tempted to reply to, but I'll say one thing:
The strongest halfling is in fact EXACTLY as strong as the strongest orc. They are both 20 strength, it has just taken the halfling longer to get there. But they are in fact equally as strong.
The fact that you don't seem to know this very, very basic fact about 5e speaks volumes to me
