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the list is not meant to say that any other choices are bad choices, or that choosing other races dooms you to failure. so with regard to the lizzy valks, freeminded, i'm sure she was an excellent contributor to the party.
there's two big assumptions underlying this. the first is that the most effective characters are those who maximise stats as quickly as possible. the second is that the choice of stats to maximise are best selected from the lists i used.
so while hardly a definitive race preference list, i think it raises some big questions: what criteria make for the best racial choices? with so much to consider, what do you prioritise? is it specialism? if so in what?
and that is without taking into account party composition.
as you look at this list, consider the alternatives they present.
freeminded - your lizzy valk was good. would a lizzy fighter have done the same thing, only better (if the valk was almost strictly doing melee)? or what about a dracon valk (if the valk was spellcasting extensively)?
wearboar - consider a gnome mage who's run up intelligence, dex, and senses. powercast, high initiative, armour class bonuses, and a high number of medusa stones thrown with maximum accuracy.
wb - regarding including int in the list for priest, lord, and valk, it is in there as a consideration. although they do not cast heavily offensively, powercast can add to the duration of buffs, the speed of learning spellbooks, and the effectiveness of those high level attacking spells (deathwish, power 7, powercast. ouch.)
having said that, notice that the races listed do not have high intelligence. the fastest stats they will raise will be str, pie, and dex. so, in spite of including intelligence as a possibility, the fastest specialising priest/lord/valk would not run up int.
finally, wb, regarding faeries, the robes of rejeuv blow away the faerie's natural mana regen, and having them for the last 2/3 of the game easily outbenefits the faerie mana regen in the first 1/3 of the game. so elves deserve consideration over faeries just on this basis. add on top the faerie's carray capacity penalty, low strength/vitality, the resulting low hitpoints/stamina, and trade this off against the paltry 2 ac bonus, and it's no contest.
or, to put this another way, are faerie's playable? sure, anything is playable. are they preferable? hardly.
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