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 The Races in D&DN kind of suck. Humans are overpowered and everything else is kinda boring and shoehorned into various classes due to things like the racial weapon use (bigger dice of damage via racial weapons). 3.5, 4th ed, Pathfinder and even 3.0 all had more interesting races than the current batch.

 Personally I like the +2/+2/-2 format for ability scores that Pathfinder uses. 4th ed used +2/+2 which is also fine but it did make humans suck a bit at least until more splats were released. Humans are also overpowered in Pathfinder and probably 3.5 and they sucked in 2nd ed. I did like the floating ability scores introduced in 4th ed. Putting it togather in my personal game for example using the Elf I use these stats.

+2 Dex, +2 Int or Dex, -2 Con.

 Not sure how one could balance out a human if it was 4th ed style race with no negative. +2 to two ability scores of your choice would be crazy good.

 Star Wars Saga had a nice mix in Races in terms of ability scores. Some reaces got +4 even in one score instead of +2/+2. Some races were over powered and underpowered due to other abilites.

 Encounter powers for races in 4th ed were fine, almost required for Dragonborn and using the old Elf again for example Elven Accuracy was better than say the 3.5 Elf and D&DN as it was a neutral racial ability usable with all classes. I also liked racial feats making certain races better with iconic weapons as oppesed to baking it into the base stats. They tried that in 3.5 but the Dwarf made a better wizard than the Elf.

 In summary I like.

+2/+2/-2 For stats, not to worried if negatives are thrown out though- not worth getting upset about. One of the +2 is "floating" as well.

Somewhat class neutral racial abilites. An elven wizard in 2nd ed for example didn't get much from +1 to hit with swords and bows, same deal with D&DN races (ergo pick a human).

Racial powers. Not to worried either way. I would like to see them there for some races, and I would prefer some over the current setup. Some were better than others in 4th ed though.

 ANyway what do you want/expect form the races?

Extra feat and choice of +2 to any ability score you like make the PF very good. The 3.5 human was a popular choice mechanically, PF added a +2 to any score of your choice. I rewrote the PF races and ported some 4th ed racial feats to PF in an effort to bribe people to play other races.

Overpowered IMHO in PF and weak in 4th ed due to secondary riders. Human got better as 4th ed went along though with its essentials era racial power and adding more at wills to the game as that ability was kind of weak in the PHB era 4th ed.

Like this.

No penalties, no pigeon holing, nothing culture-related, and plenty of optional features to suit every style of play, from encounter powers even to specific weapon bonuses or culturally evocative options as long as they can be exchanged for something else. 4E got the bonuses right, and Pathfinder did racial feature options superbly.

I actually like race design in D&DN. Weapon traits I treat like a freebie: everyone gets one (except humans, but that's a different problem), so I disregard them for the sake of balance. Are they usually better for martial characters than casters? Well, sure, but since every non-human race gets one, I usually disregard them when building characters unless they're relevant to my class.

I also hate racial ability score penalties. Because while you complain about weapon familiarity shoehorning races into certain classes, racial ability score penalties do it far worse. Elves getting a penalty to Con pretty much locks the race out of excelling at any Con based class. Dwarves with a Cha penalty? Then dwarves will always make subpar bards and sorcerers. I hate that.

One of the things I liked about 4E was the idea that every race/class combination should be playable. They won't all be optimal, but they should all be able to contribute meaningfully to the party. Now, obviously, 4E failed to deliver on this promise with some races, like the poor Minotaur and it's melee/charging dependent racial traits. But the idea was there in the beginning, and I'd like to see that philosophy brought back for D&DN.

Because some of my favourite characters I've ever played are non-standard race/class combinations. I want to be able to play my Dwarven Rogues or Half-Orc Sorcerers. And the one thing that you can do that punishes those unique combinations more than anything else is ability score penalties.

That said, I'll also say that I like the current model of "+1 to a stat from Race, +1 to a stat from Class" because it puts less pressure on the player to pick a race with an optimal ability bonus, since they know they can also boost their primary stat with their class choice.

And humans.....well, humans are a colossal mess that really need fixing. I'd be fine with them getting a floating +2 to represent their adaptability, but ditch the +1 to everything else and give us some actual racial traits please.