Racial Level Adjustment - Bad Idea or Poorly Implemented?

[Silly Name]

LA has always struck me as a very weird situation where the designers didn't want to let certain creatures be PCs, yet gave the players rules to technically make them PCs. Except they suck, so you either don't bother with those rules and make your own, or you never play those unusual creatures.

If you don't want players to have access to a thing, just don't give it to them.

Something with 14 RHD is already pretty bad because unless you play exactly in the creature's strengths, there's just too little you can do so with few levels open, so you're very much stuck in playing those creatures to type: melee bruisers will remain melee bruisers, casters will remain casters, roguish assassins will stay roguish assassins. Sticking LA on top of this is just silly.

And most games don't start at that high a level in the first place anyway, which gates potential cool concepts from the get-go.