Thomas Shey
Legend
I think it's worth noting that rules light systems constrain detailed mechanical character options and mechanical PC growth. They certainly don't constrain options and PC growth outright. Classic Traveller is a good example of a fairly rules light system that supports both character options and PC growth, though not by way of detailed mechanical subsystems. People have (and continue to) play extremely long-lived Classic Traveller campaigns despite the lack of such things being baked into the system.
I think this pretty much handwaves away what we're talking about when we talk about character options; which is to say, yes, if it doesn't have mechanical support for some, it doesn't have them (or is dependent on brute GM intervention, which is essentially houseruling them in anything but name). Your system either has support for a character having, say, better vision or it doesn't.