Actually, that Race Option got me wondering, too. I can easily see why it WOULDN'T allow us to play as Ghouls or Mutants (or Deathclaws, for that matter, this ISN'T Tactics! XD) because canonically the Chosen One is the tribal human descendant of the human Vault Dweller, and the only remarks on his or her genetics is by the Enclave, which is solely one of bigotry and elitism.... Also It would be a BITCH to patch in all the animations, new models, and rework all of the dialog to suit a player that SOMEHOW became a ghoul before taking up the quest to find the Holy GECK! More work than it's worth, obviously.
But would it, in some unforeseen future time, possibly allow players to play as a different ethnicity (which in current, modern parlance, is often referred to as "race")? Albino, darker skinned, black, etc? I can imagine that would still be a decent amount of work, but roughly on the same level as the different hair animations. Anyway, just curious if THAT'S the idea behind it..?