And people complained I was off topic...
Back more toward target, and actually addressing the topic of the question, I don't miss attribute minimums or maximums by gender or race, but I did miss them by class enough to actually bring them back for my 3.X homebrew.
For example, the homebrew hunter class had a minimum strength and dexterity of 7, while the fighter had a minimum strength of 9. And, in a nod to the old dual classing restrictions, each additional class you multi-classed into raised the ability score minimum to enter into a class of all classes by 2. So for example, a multi-classed fighter-hunter would need at least an 11 STR and at least a 9 DEX. That isn't a very hard requirement, but it did mean that you couldn't dump stat out of a class's prerequisites (as for example, trying to play a pixie fighter with basically no strength) and also there was a practical limit of 3 or 4 classes that you could multi-class into. Further, if you did try to front load, you'd soon be forced into multiple attribute dependency by the system, and MAD is a great balancing element in my opinion because what usually breaks balance is excessive depth of ability and not excessive breadth of ability. "jack of all trades, master of none" is usually balanced or even subpar, where as, "I have a big hammer, and every problem is a nail." is usually broken.
Those, combined with banning PrC's, stopped some of the front loading nonsense seen in standard 3.X that seemed to combine the worst elements of point buy (no balance, no breadth) and class systems (no flexibility, arbitrary restrictions) into one. And if I was converting to 5e, I'd probably bring similar ideas forward.
But I see no point in racial minimums - every race can have inept members. An elf could have arthritis and bed bound, or be born learning disabled. Indeed, I'd expect more handicapped elves than goblins (who'd just kill and eat anything that couldn't pull it's own weight). As a practical matter, the adventuring class, or 'heroic' class if you will, of all races would be presumably not be drawn from the least able members of the society. As for racial maximums, their is no reason to enforce them beyond the practical limits imposed by racial modifiers. Average pixies are more agile than average dwarves, and this comparison is likely to remain true of the most agile members of both races as well.
As for gender, now that things have calmed down a bit, I'll risk a few comments. If there is a game I would want to play where the capabilities of men and women are not equal, then it isn't D&D or anything like it. In D&D, I don't play a female character hoping to get a uniquely feminine perspective on life, or imagining that by my role-play I'll learn anything about real women. I've played relatively few female PC's and really none since junior high, when a I played in Gamma World what would now be a very stereotypical attractive kickbutt no-nonsense action girl Pure Strain Human with a sawed off shotgun and love of wanton violence (I was ahead of my time, even Tank Girl wasn't published until 1988). But again, even then this was pure escapism of the 'imaginary girlfriend' sort, and had nothing to do with real women nor was it intended to be commentary on real women.
Generally speaking, any game that I would want to play where men and women were really different straight out of chargen, would be very much about 'who you are' and not 'what can you do', so that attributes reflecting who you are were more important than ones reflecting what you could do. Actually doing that well might be impossible, and my expectation would be that it would be done wrong more often than not and an endless source of table arguments about whether its assumptions were truly realistic and not merely socio-cultural stereotypes. Regardless, I think there comes a point where you are trying to explore a serious setting or concept where playing a stereotypical kick-butt fantasy female who is stronger than any man is being as goofy as insisting on playing Luke Skywalker, Green Lantern, or Mickey Mouse in 11th century Japan where everyone else is trying as hard as they can to play someone who actually might have lived in 11th century Japan - right character, wrong setting, wrong game.
Do we really want to insist that Pendragon's 'Book of Knights and Ladies' (or Pendragon generally) is a sexist document, and that it's creator is to be denounced, or that anyone that actually wanted to explore a sexist setting like Arthurian Romance was themselves sexist (and hence immoral)? Even if we move the game to another fantasy setting like Tamora Pierce's 'Protector of the Small', so that Knights and Ladies aren't implicitly different categories, part of what makes 'Protector of the Small' more compelling than similar works is while it's protagonist is as large and as strong as believable for a woman (six foot tall, athletic and muscular), the very fact that she's not effortlessly stronger than typical for her sex and has to approach problems differently than a man overflowing with muscles would is what makes Kelandra such a compelling character - especially compared to more obvious wish fulfillment characters like Alanna. Had the author attempted to convince us Kel was just stronger than everyone she met, it would diminish the story. The point was that she could do the job, not that she was better than everyone else, or even had the same capabilities. If men and women were actually equal in all capabilities, one wonders why sexism exists in the setting at all? It's not social pressure or the patriarchy keeping women from being pro linebackers. You can't explain sexism with 'othering' alone, nor can you explore it deeply simply by postulating a fantasy woman who really is stronger than any man.
Would I want to try that in D&D with the average group of beer and pretzel players? Heck, no. But on the other hand, don't tell me either that only fantasy women are worth thinking about or role-playing.
