#and going from being able to play as an ascalonian refugee or a canthan protégée or an elonian sunspear trainee

[ascalonianlightbringer]

I know it wouldn't ever happen, but as someone who almost exclusively plays humans and has been attached to the GW human cultures since long before GW2 came out—

I think it would have been cool if human characters chose a subculture instead of a patron deity. Even if it doesn't affect story or appearance options any more than the choice of deity, I think being able to affiliate your character with the Canthan, Ascalonian, Elonian, or Krytan communities in DR would be really cool for character flavor, and the gods are present both through the prayer skills and their general omnipresence in human culture, so it's not like we'd lose them.

You only get the option to select your subculture if you take the "Missing Sister" backstory, as it is. And that's just one snippet of dialogue to generate your sister's appearance, even though the human cultures are far more internally diverse in terms of RL ethnicities than they were in GW1. I think it would have been very fun if you could get a bit of flavor text or something about your community in the story journal, at least.