User blog comment:Draevan13/Thoughts on the ESO Pre-Order reveal/@comment-5558140-20140201140350/@comment-17114085-20140205105454

The freedom of choice thing was for class/build of characters, not the Main factions you can/can't join. It is utter bullcrap that they made this any race in any faction. Like I said before the 3 factions were the core of the game, now they destroyed the core of the game...which is bullcrap. Just looking at this Wiki a few weeks ago and you could see the fans of the game separating into the 3 factions. There were ppl like Zip that were EP all the way and people like Is that so.... that were AD all the way. The race restriction was what attracted theses people to the factions, now why would anyone want to join the Dominion. It has such a bad rep from the Skyrim game that not many people will join it, making the factions unbalanced.

As for the Imperial Race, how do you know the racial abilities will become irrelevant later on in the game? Have you played the game all the way to see the Imperial Racial abilities and what they can do? No. So I say yes they are important. The only way you can prove me wrong is when the game comes out and we see if they will play a part all the way to the end game.