Ahh man, anyone makes a good anything in this game. The racial skill bonuses aren't all that important, and there aren't any stats to worry about.
Seems to feed into man/mer's racial stereotypes, too, that only beastfolk will pick your pockets...
(edit) I'd like to point out that my Breton Huntress has 68 in lockpicking at lvl 35... just from picking locks. No Stealth skill bonuses or training. Just pick locks, and it'll come to you.
This.
Any race can play anything. The initial bonuses are nice but at that low skill level, your skills raise fast.
So, say for a bosmer with +10 bow (Im playing one atm), thats 25 bow.
Compare that to someone with 15 bow.
When the bosmer have reached 30 in bow, another race without bow bonus will have reached almost 25. Atleast 22.
The most important are the skills that is harder to level. Lockpick you dont get to level easy, but its also not hard to open any locks.
Pickpocketing is extremly easy to level once you have around 30-40 to begin with, after that you get like 1 point per pickpocketing try almost:-)
I say racial bonus in Stealth and Light armor is important.
As for stone: Always pick the Lovers stone as a stealther. 15% on ALL skills far outweight 20% on warrior or thief skills.
Racial abilities ARE important.
Bosmers active is not good, but 50% poison resistance is very good. 50% disease resist too for those not doing companions.
Personally I could not play a Cat or a Frog man so I would not choose either of those.
For a melee thief I would pick redguard.
And for a stealth archer Bosmer.
For heavy tank dps melee, Orc is the way to go.
For a 2h light armor true nord. Well.......Nord obviously:-)
And for Mage, you really only have one choice in the high elfs.
People playing bretons for magic resists are the same people using enchanting, smithing and alchemy together to get an enjoyable experience of playing god, then moaning on the forums that the game is to easy.