If I want to play a given race, I'll do it, even if that race isn't particularly good at what I'm planning to do. I've played Halfling Barbarians and I have a long-running 2e character who is a Gnome Fighter/Priest.
My current 5e character is a Kobold Wizard, not because the Kobold racial traits are particularly useful to me (I'm playing the Kobold Press variant, and I have the ability to get advantage on a melee attack that I've yet to use despite being level 9 now).
But I won't do this if I think my choice will drag the party down. I once had this great idea for a Tabaxi Wizard, but starting with a 14 Intelligence made me a bit less useful to my party, so I retired the character despite enjoying them. D&D is a team game, after all. If I'm not pulling my weight, I don't expect others to pick up my slack.
All that having been said, yes, I totally will choose a race if they have some neat or unique feature that I can build around for a fun and novel experience. In 4e, they published a flying race with at 10' maximum ceiling for their flight. People said it was useless, I played a Knight Fighter and flew over medium and smaller foes giving them no good choices to escape punishment- move and get hit. 5' step and get hit. hit someone else and get hit. Better attack the little flying bug floating above you, sucker!
Sure, some players are min/maxers, and why wouldn't they be? Dungeoneering is a dangerous game, it makes sense that the best will succeed. But modern games are slowly evolving to make sure that the difference between one race and the next really does come down to aesthetic, lore, and maybe a neat special ability.
So someone might pick a Wood Elf for 5' more speed, or a Tabaxi for a climb speed, or an Eladrin for a teleport, or a Plasmoid for the bizarre ability to squeeze into tiny spaces. I don't see a problem with that. But I do think it's better that they acknowledge their character's uniqueness in their play, of course.
If you're 8' tall and struggle to fit inside doors made for normal humans, commenting about how you have to stoop or are uncomfortable in chairs or how you can never find clothing that fits you is just as neat and interesting as commenting about the customs of your species and the significance of your birthmarks in your culture.
Simply put, players make the choices they do for reasons of their own, and it can be story, rules, or something else- I know someone who plays Elves in every game they play in because "they're pretty". And another who always plays humans (even when variant humans are banned) because they aren't comfortable with being a non-human.
If they have fun, and it doesn't impact other people's fun, I can't see anything wrong with that.