Well, the same thing that is wrong with crating a High Elf Barbarian or a Dwarf Wizard... its not what any of the story of what the race is supposed to be good at.
SNIP
Moreover the PHB describes Investigation in such a way that you have to be so damn specific about it-- "I check the bottom of the second drawer of the dresser"-- so that it is rather silly that you are making any sort of check at all, you as a player clearly already know exactly where what your PC is looking for is located that it is utterly impossible for them to miss it. Imagine losing your keys in your house and having to shout out loud precisely every location you will check before you check it and knowing that you need to spend 5 minutes searching each specific location before maybe deciding that they aren't there.
Finally, not only is the race absolute crap, it gets bundled into this group of "monster races"... along with the insanely, brokenly overpowered Bugbear. A category that is absolutely going to immediately get banned from play at all tables at all events, justified simply because it contains insanely, brokenly overpowered races like the Bugbear and whatever else is going to come in the future where they just shrug their shoulders and say "let's just give it all the most powerful combat stuff" and then call it a day.
This is a clear case where the person writing the stats not only failed to be competent, but they made up terminology in order to opt out of competence and excuse themselves for doing so. "Hey, they are just 'monster races' there is no need for them to be remotely balanced or playable because we aren't going to allow anyone to play them anyway"
There is just so much here to talk about… frankly I’m going to snip a lot and talk in generalities, there’s just so much anger I’m not sure going point by point is going to be conducive to a discussion.
Yes, I have done a little homebrewing for that situation. No, not all the things he makes needs to be for combat, but the guy is a combat buff, he loves killing things, so his characters tend to focus on combat. When he tried to convince the Cloud Giant Baroness that his ingenuity was worth betting on, it was an intelligence roll, because ingenuity is best based off intelligence.
It wasn’t a lot of homebrewing, more just expanding the current crafting rules and using the rules and logic in gnomes to figure out which checks they should use. Which, by the way, gnomes are a +2 INT race, and not generally seen as worthless.
And honestly, I think that is what frustrates me about your position. You are dead set that bonuses to Intelligence are worthless. That there is no value, that no one except wizard benefits from having an intelligence higher than 6… and that is just not true. I have found may situations where Intelligence has been a valuable stat. I’ve used History, Religion and Nature significantly to tell people information about the world, information I might not have given them otherwise.
And, just because a lot of people run Investigation incorrectly doesn’t mean it is as useless as you say. Let’s say your team has broken into a shop keep’s office, you want to see if he has any ties to a criminal enterprise. Investigation on the room, maybe investigation on his desk which I mentioned is covered in papers. I don’t think you really need to say you check the third drawer down for a secret compartment, if you are rifling through the desk and roll high enough, I assume you checked that drawer.
And actually, going back and re-reading the PHB, because I don’t remember that 10 minutes to investigate rule, reveals two interesting things. 10 no such rule exists, investigation can be as short or long as the DM wants it to be, and more importantly 2) the high specificity you are talking about in the bolded part is actually referenced in the rules for
Perception, the skill you say is quicker and more general and therefore more useful.
Finally, to wrap things up because I have to go and mow the yard now, I think it is incredibly unfair to assume that this race is bad, and that it is bad on purpose, and that it is going to be automatically banned, and all of that was planned by the writers. As we’ve seen repeatedly in reference to Dragonborn and Tieflings, DMs are not only capable, but willing, to selectively ban races they don’t like. So if people consider the bugbear too powerful (which I haven’t heard yet, in fact I’ve heard they aren’t nearly as good as people say they are, because differences of opinion) they will ban the bugbear, not necessarily the Bugbear, Lizardfolk, Hobgoblin, Goblin, Kenku, ect.
The way Hobgoblins are written now, from my perspective, they are always decent warriors. They are always able to use a martial weapon regardless of class, they are tough, and they can adapt to any of the major martial races. And frankly, I don’t think changing that +1 INT to +1 STR or +1 DEX is going to magically make them vastly superior. Because as much as you tout that +1 to hit and damage as being so important… if they end up missing by 1 point, they save face and end up hitting anyways. That bonus is really good, even if it is per short rest, because you can see exactly how high of a bonus you are going to get, so you can choose never to waste it, unlike battle master precision attack or bardic inspiration or bless, which can always roll a 1 and be very unhelpful.