Oh jeez. No. Halflings get left out because they’re the only race that is iconic but also was invented by Tolkien and otherwise only really a D&Dism, ie, they have no thematic link outside of D&D and Middle Earth.
And I’ve played a pretty wide breadth of games. You should probably get past your habit of assuming that people who disagree with you just don’t understand what you’re talking about or don’t have enough experience of whatever. Your position isn’t inevitable or self evident.
But that's my point. Halflings are allowed to have these believability issues in D&D because the fanbase wants them in and doesn't care if they have issues.
But once you leave D&D and LotR, halflings don't get a free pass and often get dropped or downgraded for these issues.
This is why halflings on many homebrew and new settings look very very different from base D&D ones.