Better alternative than stat-less races

[Aimeryan]

There's another camp: make race and class combinations different without unequivocally good/bad choices.

I would still put this as part of the second; the choice will be good or bad depending on your goal for the build. Consider a race that makes melee stronger, and pair this with say the Fighter. Is this a good race and class combination? That depends - do you want to focus on melee or ranged? If the latter, then its bad. If the former, then its good.

Ideally, this should be the case for all race/species and class combinations - all work in some way, but HOW they work makes them good or bad for different builds. The problem here is that this would also require classes can be played in all ways, with feats and subclasses leaning in different directions. Certainly this is the case to some extent, but sometimes there is only say one path for the class that accomplishes this and it just isn't good - which makes the overall race/species and class combination bad even if it synergises.