Is it just me thinking that it would be awesome if we could pick our toon’s base traits from a small race-specific pool?
This would make even more sense if some of the allied races were merged as templates within the customization screen of the base race.
Since images often work better than text to convey ideas, I have made this mockup of the character creation UI to show how it could work for the Draenei having two template sets of choices for ‘Regular’ and ‘Lightforged’.
When selecting one of the two templates, the customization options would change and the player would also be able to select the racials from a pool including a few “base draenei traits” plus some “flavour traits”:
Lastly, I’d like to mention that this idea has occurred to me while hanging out in the Sub-race templates thread, and that the mockup has been built from a template kindly provided by Moira-TheVentureCo. 
Racial Choice Q&A
(Editing on the go, based on the conversation running in the thread)
1. But the Racials need to be Lore-appropriate!
Nobody is saying that all races should get to choose from all options. It is obvious that the pools would be Lore-appropriate, and while some base traits might be shared between flavors of the same race, a number of others should always be unique to the specific race flavor.
2. But it would not be fair to the races with less options!
That’s why more racials could/should be invented, so that every race (or racial flavor in case of former allied races) has an equally-sized pool to choose from.
In the example case of the Lightforged Draenei shown above, it is assumed that some of the current Draenei traits have become part of the base set shared between the two flavors. That would mean that new ones would need to be created for the Non-Lightforged.
The required amount of work would not be unthinkable if the feature comes at the beginning of a new expansion (after Shadowlands ofc).
3. So what about racial uniqueness?
It doesn’t need be renounced, as there could still be enough traits unique to each racial flavor to fill all of the available slots.
Or, (suggested by Geisl on MMO-C) there could be a combined system where a number of traits are fixed for the race as they are now, while a few others can be chosen.
In the first case, each race might have a pool of 9 traits of which they can choose 4 or 5. 4 of them would be base racial traits shared between flavors of the same race while the other 5 would be unique to the racial flavor.
In the second case, each race would have 3-4 fixed racial traits (as now!) and be able to choose 1-2 from a pool of 3-4. Again, these would have to be Race Specific so no sort of Goblin racial appearing on Night Elves etc.
This would be a way to keep ‘iconic racials’ for each race, while still moving towards broadening character customization for racials.
4. So what - people will always pick the same “best” ones anyway!
As the game is now, with some racials handy for PvP, others best for PvE, and others being mere profession utilities, the “best” race a player can pick depends both on the class they are choosing and what they want to do with their toon.
If anything, being able to select your toon’s racials from a pool would be an improvement because the player would get a chance to adapt the character based on what kind of gameplay they are most interested in.
Sure, there might always be a top build for specific activities, but compared to now, there would still be less pressured to pick a specific race/class combo.
5. If it is a choice then it should be changeable like talents!
Not true. Right now, you have to choose your race, but still cannot switch to another unless you reroll.
Furthermore, you also cannot switch from a Bronzebeard to a Dark Iron Dwarf mid-game based on activity despite of them being flavors of the same race.
The same way, getting a chance to switch the Blacksmithing boost for a more useful trait when first creating a toon that is not meant to pick the profession is hardly a valid argument for being able to switch racials later on.
The extra choice in the very beginning would be a perk, but from that moment forward, everything would work exactly the same way as now.
In order to void this argument, however, the system could be made so that racials that are throughput-based (1% extra crit chance/vers increased by 1%) cannot be changed and only utility racials are changed - e.g. if a Lightforged isn’t into blacksmithing they could maybe instead summon another profession apparatus with an associated skill increase into it instead.
