racial trait protection, and what else can be done

[Prak]

So, obviously, some racial traits are well served by a bit of protection.

If you can get a bonus feat from being human, or being a crazy awesome yak man with ability modifiers and horns and shit, why would anyone ever choose to be human (unless they have some philosophical aversion to being a yak)?

Is there any good way around this? Can playing a human be incentive-ised with in world stuff? Like awesome prestige classes that require you to be human? or feats that are human only, but give you an extra little boost to a class or something?

would these kind of solutions accomplish anything? or will humans die out in the world because players always choose the cool yak man that has a bonus feat and horns, or the raven man who practically starts the game with a feat, an arbitrarium katana, and flight?

(no, I didn't give tengu all that, but they are pretty good...)

What if I rework humans for the world, so they aren't just "get an extra feat, and some skill points, and be really generic"? Is it a particularly bad idea to rework humans for a setting?

[Korwin]

Is it a particularly bad idea to rework humans for a setting?

No, it is'nt.

[Caedrus]

One thing that tons of fiction with powerful non-human races uses for humans is to make humans the "never say die, always get back up again, too damn stubborn" race that always surprises whatever other race with their refusal to just plain die or give up already.

You could use that. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Determinator