Boy are we seeing differences in approach, here. Many of us who like to roll the stats don't necessarily have a strongly preconceived notion of what it is we want to play. The stats, especially if they must be rolled in order, can help us to decide what might be interesting and send us down paths that we might not have anticipated. That's part of the fun of character generation when you roll. The difference in approach here is partly the difference between micromanaging character generation and making lemonade when life gives you lemons.
And even if you do have a preconceived notion, random stat generation may cause us to think about many different ways that we can accomplish our goals. For example, a successful linguist can be made with nothing more than an average intelligence since the Speak Language is cheap and there's no skill check to make. Take a few levels in Expert or Rogue and you'll have plenty of skill points to use to expand your language repertoire without assuming you need to have a high intelligence.
Your stats give you a physical weakling but you want to be a basher? Use your head when you bash. Open doors with a prybar (+2 on checks) , bluster and intimidate rather than actually physically confront, adjust your conception a little to be someone who's past his prime and, after going through a few bursts of activity, has to sit down for a rest.
And think of the fun you can have if your character thinks he's the most suave person (or at least wants to be) on the planet but everyone around him finds him kind of annoying. Sometimes the creative dissonance between what the initial character conception was and how the character comes out in play is a rewarding outcome.
And above all, realize that in 3rd edition D&D, stats are much more easily mutable than in previous editions with the clever use of level advancement stat bonuses and magic.
