Oh come on, I think that argument's a bit weak, Luciro. Because they took out the kitty people that are ubiquitous in everything else, suddenly their character models go from the most fantastic to incomplete and overdone? Even when there were 2 versions of each of the races, they were still just (save for the 2 suwari races- one of which was never playable from the get-go) human clones- tall or short, more natural or magical, pointed ears rounded, bearded or not. It's not like you can say HJ had half a dozen different and fantastical kinds of beings to play.
Look at WoW- tauren, orcs, humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, trolls, undead, freakin' extra-terrestrial shamanistic draenei- that's quite alot of diversity in culture and appearance. That cannot compare to (as you would say) tall humans with pointy ears, short humans with beards, humans, and kitty people. I agree with you that they should have more variety- but you can't argue that they used to have that variety that you are craving.