Mercule
Adventurer
This. I tend to go with a similar idea. Worshiper count has a similar root cause as expanding the portfolio, but isn't always an even thing. If craftsmanship is held in high regard, Moradin tends to get more prayers, offerings, etc. and is probably best served by answering them, if the metaphysics allow for it. If there's a lot of strife, it doesn't mean that Lolth is going to get more worshipers; she might get more prayers for mercy, but that's not the same thing and she's not served as well by granting those prayers.I also liked 4e's universal deity list. I tend to use the notion that the gods are more interested in expanding their portfolio than in getting souls (so if Lolth is the goddess of strife and discord, she gets more power the more strife and discord there are in the mortal worlds). Organized religion and shaping "chosen" races are efficiencies--there is always somebody working on your portfolio.
This also plays into how mortals can ascend to divinity, in one of my home brews. If a mortal can tie themselves tightly to a given concept, they can ride the same tide as the gods. This is actually what makes humans "special" in that setting -- their soul is actually more able to do this than the other races. Not a ton, mind you, but with millennia and a large enough population, it's a non-zero number of ascended humans. Meanwhile, elves have spirits (this comes from the setting's origin in 1E) and have absolutely no ability to attain divinity -- they were actually celestials who gave it up before recorded history and that's a one-way trip. Psionics is also a manifestation of this divine force. Divine casters borrow power from other beings, arcane casters shape cosmic energy, but psions actually have enough personal power to do something with -- just like the gods, but on a smaller scale. Humans are psionic more often than any other race and elves can never be psionic (again, 1st edition origin).