2024 Phb Species Richness. A single page for most character species (and i like that they are using the term species now) of which half of the page is an illustration seems scant at best. We’ve already seen a substantial evolution of races throughout d&d 5e in terms of design philosophy.
If you’re serving as a defender, you want more durability to compensate for the monk’s low ac at low levels and their relatively low hit dice. Druids and rogues continue to get their respective special languages as part of their level 1 features.