Good equipment and player skill, as well as the Merit system, can overcome any racial shortcomings.
With exceptions of strength and MP because of their value in the game, there is little reason to consider a race you wouldn't enjoy as much over a race that best suits your tastes simply because of base stats even the strength and MP argument becomes moot unless you plan to only play one job type on that character and that's an advantage that you feel you need. Finally, if you want the most rounded stats because you plan on leveling several different types jobs, Hume is a good choice. If you want the most intelligence and largest MP pool for your black mage, choose Tarutaru. If you want to be the strongest possible melee and plan to stack Strength gear you'd choose Elvaan. It is also common for players to play several jobs, so picking a race that's "perfect" for all of them isn't practical or necessary. While, the base stats will vary for each race, most of the impact will be on what type of equipment you wear versus what job you decide to play. There's quite a bit of freedom to choose whatever race best suits your personal tastes. Furthermore, with 3 different nations, 20 different jobs and 99 different levels, the odds of meeting someone who is your virtual twin would be 1 in 2,073,600. If that's not enough, each model can also be assigned the size of small, medium, or large for a total of 384 unique looks. The 5 playable races are comprised of 16 character models for each race and applicable gender for a total of 128 Character Models.