Races never mattered anymore than they do currently, attributes and classes made no more differences in the races.
In Morrowind and Oblivion, you could be just as good a mage as an Orc or a Nord as you could be with a Breton or a High Elf, you could be just as good of a warrior with a Wood Elf or a Khajiit as you could be with a Redguard. Let's not make up false claims about the games, past and present, to suit an irrational agenda.
Except in one aspect, endurance, which governed how many hit points you received per level, and given that the hp bonuses weren't retroactive like they are in say D&D, that meant that if you wanted to get the most hp you could possibly could (and you would want that) You wanted to max out you endurance as quickly as possible. Elimination of the attributes means you no longer have that distinction. That said it was still possible to get enough hp by playing say a High Elf in early games. Also, by eliminating things like "endurance" you no long had to worry about stat multipliers and practicing skills that didn't even fit your playing style to begin with.
Its not so much about winning fast and getting ahead earlier, it has a lot to do with replay value. Before in in Morrowind and Oblivion, you chose your race and they were very different from each other, because of Attribute differences. Then you chose your Birthsign and each one offered different gameplay advantages. In Skyrim they dumbed it down by saying,"hey, you don't need to choose your Birthsign. Just pick a new one whenever you want." Makes no sense. Birthsign are things your character is born under, not standing stones. The leveling system in Skyrim is one dimensional. In Oblivion and Morrowind, if you leveled your Blade skill, it would in turn, raise your Strength attribute. That is two dimensional leveling, which has more depth and is more rewarding.
And no, perks do not replace Attributes.
Uh...yeah, gotta side with Nell on this one. Look the mantra for Elder Scrolls, from the very get go, was to play what you wanted to play, and the changes that Bethesda has made throughout the series have been made towards that pursuit. And the elimination of attributes such as strength and endurance has only helped to achieve that goal.
Let's take an example here, I like swords, I want my character to use swords, I want her to be good with swords. Well I can increase her sword skill, but for her to really be good with swords I have to increase strength. Which governs damage and governs how much you can carry, which is important because the better weapon and armor materials get gradually heavier. This means increasing my strength stat and appropriate modifiers and the best way to do that is to train and use axes and maces, you know, weapons that aren't swords.
Eliminating strength means I no longer have to worry about increasing skills I had no intention of using in the first place. And yes they've dumbed it down to one handed, but the point is I no longer have to carry have to carry a mace or an axe, and it can be more about preference then what skill or stat is tied to it.
Quite sad, really. The race system could be a great source of providing the game with replay value, but instead they're just diminishing it's value to nothing...
On the contrary the new system is more specific not less, The perk system means I am no longer going to be a master at every skill, can I become good at skills I don't have any perks in? Yes, but I will never be as good with those skills as I will with the ones I do have perks for.
Also the health, magic, and stamina increase that I have to choose from also effects my choices, do I want to stand toe to toe with my foes or spam powerful spells at them. And yes I am aware that you can eventually enchant stat bonuses into armor and jewelry. But until I get high enough in my enchanting to make that worthwhile the stat choices still impact the growth of my character.
Sure the system isn't perfect, there are some perks that aren't particularly useful, their are some skills that are going to level faster then others just by the nature of this game. But very few systems are perfect, and personally I find I like this system better then what they've in the past. Here I don't have to worry about maxing out attribute modifiers before leveling up.