I agree with you, but there is the school of thougths claiming that, because character creation choice have usually more far reaching and permanent consequences they should matter more.
@tuggyne
It seems we agree on the general principle but not on the implementation, devil in the detail indeed...
On a personal note though I believe that a system in which character creation can take a number of hours with double digit is doing it wrong.
On a side note I would also add that a perfectly balanced system is only possible within a system with a really close and limited matematical array of ooptions; 4e is the closest thing to a mind as an example and we all know how that turned out.