Better alternative than stat-less races

[LudicSavant]

No, you're completely misconstruing the argument. The argument is not "at the highest percentile, everyone is equal."

The argument is that at character creation, you are not trying to represent a certain percentile of a certain population segment at all. You're representing a certain sort of person who has done certain sorts of things. You're saying "I am playing a strong warrior" and then picking things like height and gender and age (and yes, race) to suit your preferences. Jaime and Brienne are equally strong fighters. Brienne might be more of a statistical outlier than Jaime, and there might be men who are far stronger than Brienne on the high end, but words like "statistical outlier" have no place in character creation. Jaime and Brienne probably have similar numbers of class levels, and similar overall stats.

If someone wants to play a strong woman, why shouldn't they be allowed to? Because its less statistically probable? What kind of an argument is that? By that logic everyone should roll for race and stats and class on a table that heavily favors "human fighter" as a result. Elves should just get 3 levels for free because of how much more time they have to learn "on average." Picking your height to be on the low end of the curve should have significant stat penalties/bonuses. Picking your age to be higher or lower should also have lots of penalties and bonuses.

But no, we don't do that. If someone wants to play a ripped old man who's 5', they should be able to. People should be able to play freaks! Something like a fallen Aasimar is extremely rare per the lore, but you can play one. The only reason there are capped stats at character creation is for balance/progression reasons. It's not there to simulate a certain percentile of person.

If you want to play a woman and have her be weaker than the average male adventurer go ahead. There's nothing stopping you, in the same vein that people sometimes make wizened old men with 8 CON.

This, exactly. The Brienne, Jaime, and Fallen Aasimar examples are right on point.