A few points.
Firstly - I think that there's general agreement in the team that we should see more awards that are none racial in aspect. I think that's a good idea. I don't know when or if more award options will happen, but I would expect them to be moving a bit away from the racial aspect. Maybe not completely , but at least mainly.
Why is Arelith showing more difference in appearence now? Well I think I can answer that easily enough.
There's two main reasons.
1) Awards are just much, much, much easier to get, nowadays. Even with the timer, I bet that within a year of contantly rolling characters, most people could probably get at least a greater award, if not a major. And that's not counting on those who had many banked before the timer came in.
2) One thing I was passionate about, in my tenure (and I make no apologies for it, to be clear!) is that I wanted awards to be appealing for all sorts of players. Back when I joined in that capacity, pretty much all the 'Normal' awards (ignoring the ECL option) was either a) Monster in the underdark b) Good monster in the underdark c) Neutral Pale Master.
Which is all well and good, but what if I don't want to play in the underdark? Or play a Pale Master? And y'know, not to speak ill of the underdark server, it's very nice and there's lots of loverly players there- but the majority of our player base are not regularly monster-character-players.
Greater and Major awards were a bit better but still really were slanted on 'You got a greater? Awsome! You must want to play an evil murderous psychopath then right?! Right?!' and you know - not to disparage those that do, and not to say that such isn't a reasonable option - but that desire doesn't cover what a fair chunk of what the player base wants.
So in short - there's more normal/greater racial award options for races that are a) Not specifically Hidden (e.g. yuan'ti, Rakshasa, Hags, Imps) and b) that can be played primarly on the surface. Previuosly these awards either just languished unused, or were played as purely underdark or hidden concepts.
So I always tried to champion the idea that there should be more varity of awards, more interesting options, for players of all sorts. I still feel that way, to be honest.
I'm not neccesarly against the idea of making some races rarer, sure. I think that's an interesting discussion to have and there's a few interesting options - though each has their own drawbacks and their own benefits. That said, I would rather not see a huge step back too, where awards - at least on the lower end of the spectrum, only really catered for a specific taste in the playergroup.
(Small addition - Gloamings were all Irongron's idea though. Not that I have any very strong feelings on the matter, but it did suprise me when they came in as Greater Awards, given their wings. Oh well.)
Edit: Edit:
And the very idea of the award system as a whole is intended to keep rare races rare. After all, it's just a chance to get a higher tiered award, so you shouldn't see particularly many.
Touching on this comment super quick.
Back In The Day When It Took 9 Months to Level to 30 On Average: - this worked? Nowadays when most can do it within a month - it doesn't.
There are ways of Fixing(tm) this, but a lot of them have some form of drawback.
A few that come to mind
1) - lower the percentiles. Which is well and good, but honestly people already hate the RNG aspect of the system, so it's not likely to be popular
2) - Make it take more time to level up. Another highly controversial idea, not least of all because this effects a lot of other things.
3) - Link what to take to RPB - Nice, but could lead to some people just never rolling characters, because why bother? Nothing they like is available. And whilst I am a big proponent of the RPB system, I can't deny it has it's failings and I feel we need to be wary how much we gate behind it. Not to say we should gate nothing behind it, or even gate 'more' things behind it, but that it's something to be wary of.
4) - Make more special races require apps. - Well, that's a possiblity but potentially adds a lot more work to the DM team. Also can make more accusations of favortism ec.t
5) Limit amount of races able to be played at any one time - like Vampires at present. This would be very diffuclt to police, and might end up in some highly problematic sitautions, at least if the numbers were kept too low. I can't picture a way how this could be automated, and still be fair. Yet if done manually then I can't picture a way that this also wouldn't be extremly hard work for the DM team, and frustrating for the player base. Unless the numbers were set VERY high, I'd personally be very much against this idea.
6) Allow people to have only a certain amount of 'special races' in their account. This isn't a /bad/ idea, but again not sure that fixes the problem. You'll still get people playing the one Winged Character they have in their vault, because it's special. If you make it so they can't get any more major awards whilst playing their current Major (for example) that'll likely mean they'll just stop rolling full stop. Or if you make it so that they can still roll for more awards - that's fine, but whos' to say they won't delete their Avarial for, say, a winged Fey'ri?
7) Offer more None Racial Options - Ok so to be clear I do like this idea, it's one of my fave out of all of those on this list and is probably going to happen. But the one issue with it - esp when it comes to the 5% options- is IDK about you, but if I'm spending a 5% on something 'special' that's none racial, I want it to be BLOODY special. So there is a chance (note only a chance) of powercreep here. To an extent I feel that this can also be argued with the 5% races too, but that can also be offset by the cosmetic stuff? Your Avariel may not be as mechanically powerful as a human, but it looks unique and pretty. But- Maybe I'm thinking too much into this. More unique none racial options over all? Great idea.
8) Rehall the entire award system. Which honestly was somethng discussed and something I pushed for in my tenure, but sadly never came to pass. I really hope it will however, because I think it needs to be done.
One thing to keep in mind with this though is that there tend to be braudly two schools of thought when it comes to awards. (esp rcial ones)
"Awards should go to people who can roleplay those concepts the best. People who can give back to the community and will play these characters in accordance with lore, and not just for a gimmic."
Vs.
"Awards shouldn't be gated by DM attention or even favoritism. Anyone should potentially be able to play an Award race, if they do the Thing that gets them the award."
Both of these options have their merits. I think an award system should ideally come a little off both of these - allowing for anyone to potentially get an award, but with the option made slightly quicker/easier for those who express good roleplay. But note whichever way things go - someone is going to complain.
9) Remove awards/special races entirely from the game. I dont' like this as an idea at all personally, but there it is, in all it's terrible glory.
I'm sure there are other options too, and I look forward to reading peoples ideas. Each one has it's benefits, and it's drawbacks.
But somerthing else to keep in mind - we currently already have lots of 'unique' appearence characters about, and lots of awards floating about, banked and ready for people to do 'something' with. So short of force-deleting all of these special characters, and removing all awards from peoples banks - I don't think we'll see a change any time soon.
This too shall pass.
(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)