Mercurius
Legend
Halflings. Even gnomes have flavour. Halflings are faceless little mini-me monsters. In my campaign I gave them 4E-style gnome eyes and webbed fingers/toes and fiddled with their bonuses, which gave them a little more of a theme, but I'm still not keen.
Sometimes I wish for the good old days when halflings were hobbits, then I remember even less people wanted to play them back then, and slap myself.
Dragonborn, whilst mocked, were a hit with my group at least. One player is playing one, and another is obsessed with the fact that they can breath fire.
Hmmm...you're making me re-think my choice of gnomes. I think you are right--gnomes actually have more flavor than halflings, which are de-hobbitified little people, and I never really liked hobbits to begin with: too "cutesy English country folk" (when I first read LotR I always wanted to know what Aragorn and Legolas were up to, not Merry and Pippin, not to mention Dodo and Ham).
Dragonborn have grown on me...a bit. I think one of the biggest turn-offs, as with tieflings, has been the 4E art. I mean, I enjoy Wayne Reynolds but I just don't dig the Dragonborn "mushy dinosaur face" on the PHB. It mars an otherwise excellent cover.