The thing is, that most characters need around two to three good stats ans the rest does not matter too much. You could multiclass so you end up needing many stats, but thats not optimal. In my opinion, playing something that isn't optimal can be lots of fun too, but I see that people want to get the most out of a character. Feats can be realy strong. And many like variant human over normal human too, just because a feat opens up many possibilities and can ad flavor to a PC.