Ryujin
Legend
Exactly, and as always, I feel the player should have final say on how close their character comes to the norm for the setting. Anything significantly outside the table-setting norm can always be houseruled to be a deformity and thus frowned upon by that race's society. Slender, non-hairy, non-scarred orcs might be perceived just as unnatural as an Elf with 2-foot-long ears.
And I'm not suggesting that elves look distinctly alien, only that within their range of elfishness, which is already pretty darned human to begin with, they have their own distinguishing traits that make elves more than simple re-colorations of each other. Drow features might be more angular and predatory, their eyes smaller and closer together while their ears angle more backwards than upwards, coming to a sharper tip. Wood elves might have more rounded features, more facial hair(from their social/historical lack of hygiene), their ears shorter and more human, angling outwards with a more sail-like shape than a triangular shape. Grey/High/Eladrin elves might have taller, narrower ears, flatter against their skull with very chiseled facial features, where Drow look almost gaunt, High elves look statuesque.
I tend to think of the cultural/intellectual differences as being far more significant, between elves and humans, than are the physical differences. Despite the pointy ears and similar lack of understanding where human motivations are concerned, elves are sort of "anti-Vulcans." If they weren't, then a race that lives for a thousand years, in a world where experience equates to power, would rule the place.