I would be very happy to see Drow and all the other "evil subraces" be folded directly into their primary races. Drow should just use normal elf stats. It makes things so much simpler.
It would be fairly at odds with the way these races have been done in the past. The idea was 1) the Underdark is a lot more dangerous than the upper realms, so to survive down there you need to be more powerful, and 2) the magical radiation of the Underdark tends to make creatures that live there for the long term more magical. Thus Duerger, Drow, and Svirfneblin all had a pretty good set of spell-like abilities at their disposal and tended to be base HD/level of 3+. I'm curious to see how soon we'll see a playable Drow, given that they were featured prominently in some 4e/Essentials materials and that the retro-flavor of 5e doesn't favor making them a base playable race given their greater power level.
On the subject of Gnomes, I think the major problem for me personally is that I've never seen one played by anybody except for running it as a 'humorous' character. Y'now the types "Yay, I'm a hyperactive Gnome pyromaniac - sqeeeek!!!"
Humourous for the person playing it maybe, an irritation for everybody else.
To some extent, I am sympathetic for people having options but beyond the comedy routine, what are Gnomes good for? If it came down to it, I'd rather include another character race instead. What about Centaurs?
Personally, I've never played a Gnome character for a laugh any more than any other type of character. I tend to see them as academic types or artisans- naturals for Bards, Wizards, Artificers, and certain types of Rogues (focused more on the traps and exploration areas, rather than picking pockets and the like). Building on their illusion knack, I see gnomes as having a culture centered on appreciation for intricacy and fine detail- a gnome would rather have a perfectly cut gem than a stack of gold bricks, thinks a carefully constructed clockwork or lock mechanism is more interesting than a thousand foot dam or a gigantic fortress, prefers knowing all of the details of their chosen field of study to knowing a little about everything (but knows a little about anything anyway).
Dwarves and halflings seem just as likely to be played for a laugh, or half-orcs or barbarians. For that matter, I had a battle-axe wielding Elf Fighter-Mage named Genghis Khan at one point. I think the insalubrious influence of WoW has probably pushed gnomes a little farther towards the comic relief role, which unfortunately Pathfinder picked up with its pyromania, crazy hair, and penchant for wild extremities to avoid 'the Bleaching'. One of the reasons that I've found myself liking the 3e/Eberron version more than PF.
Go way back in Aragorn's linage and you will see that he is a distant relitive of Elrond. Elrond's brother chose to be mortal but his life was long, as was that of his decendencts (sp). SO he does have some elven blood in him I beleve.
I'd forgotten all the bits with his ancestry being tied to the Elves- never really thought of him as Elvish at all. Still tend to think of him more as 'high human' rather than 'half elven'- a bit like the 'high ogres' from Krynn. Six of one, half a dozen of another I suppose. Don't want to depart too far from the topic with a Middle Earth Geneology bee
