I think that physicality should relate to your class, i dont think that a dwarf rogue should be as burly as a dwarf warrior, or berzerker. Barbarian should not be a race it should be a class, barbarians are basicly just humans, orcs, ogres, etc that have a body mass that would be to cumbersome for full plate. Warriors, and knights traditionally would be midsize body mass that is fitting for a full set of armour. A Gnome rogue should have a visibly different physique than a Gnome mage. Physicality would really help with class distinction. It's an age old video game flaw in my eye's and its one that i dont think wouldent take that much resources to remedy. Everquest has 2 different char models for every race pre luclin. Luclin came out in 2001. that is like 18 years ago. surely we can have more than 1 char model per race in a modern mmo.
It would be nice to have some sort of "slider" system in the character creation window. Humans having the biggest difference (shape/size) with the other races having a smaller change in shape/size but other options like skin color/design, ornaments, hair/beard and the like. Just my opinion. Either way, I'll be happy with anything we get.
Obviously choice of class shouldn't affect many things in character creation. Height - eye color - are obvious examples. Hair - I would be most displeased if my choice of class limited my hairstyling creativity.
Should it affect anything? I am inclined to say "no" as long as there is a range of physiques available.
Let each player decide whether to have a big burly warrior-type or a more lithe quick moving one.
This is one of the many reasons I advocate for preset body type options in character creation. A half dozen or so different body types would go a long way in facilitating the creation of our personal characters and allow for players to make those kinds of "physicality" distinctions if they so choose.
[edit] Sliders would be great as well, but I generally advocate for preset body types because it would be easier to implement. You could then combine that with a few simple sliders - for muscle tone and (for women) bust size.
By preset body type options I assume you mean 4 or 6 or 8 or other number of physiques and you choose which one you want. Sounds easier to implement given the limited number of choices - but you can still have a nice range of options. Easy to have identical looking characters if you want to replace one with a clone - or run a few identical characters. I still remember my SWTOR human tended to be 2-6-1-7-5-1-10-3-1 with no need to save the configuration just memorize it.