Not to mention when creating a character for the first time, the assumption needs to be that the player knows nothing about game. So you're basically saying the player needs to know what those "perks" of the race mean so he can make an informed choice before even getting to the actual gameplay. So a new player says "Oh, I'll get a discount to Gallente Weapons....what the hell is a Gallente Weapon?" but selects it anyways and later decides he doesn't like Gallente Weapons...well then he picked a race that doesn't benefit him at all, and is then encouraged to just scrap it and start over with a different race. Not good.

Starting skills is one thing, but permanent and unique perks to each race that cant be replicated by another race later just leads to frustrated new players that are forced to make critical choices before they even have the option to educate themselves on what the choices actually entail.