Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[Errorname]

Elves could do everything, sure...but I was angling for "If you heard that someone was playing a(n) [Insert race here] and you had to place money on your guess, what would you guess they were playing?" Of course there were exceptions, and every town...practically every group...had at least one person that wanted to play Pink Ninjas ("against type, and for dramatic effect!").

Fair, although I do still stand by "Elves have a much broader range of default assumptions" than other races.

given they are short, stocky, earthy and have a beared how does adding to that make it worse has anyone even tried jazzing them up?

Because when you add stuff to a design, you change it. Most people when they think of Dwarves do not think of them as earth elementals, they think of them as short people with big beards.

Goliaths are not half giants they nearly have any lore at all they are just tall and earthy and given wotc seemingly failing to grasp the base lore is useful for selling things to people they will never develop past that.

Goliaths are obviously filling a half-Giant role, and they are often described as descended from giants. I stand by my statement.

I would prefer if these things would grow and develop but I do not see that as mutually exclusive with making dwarves better.

I never said it was? I brought up Goliaths as an example of a thing which appeals to a different sort of player than dwarves do. A small guy is not going to be appealing to the sort of player who wants to be a big guy, and that's not really fixable but it's also not really a problem.

I also prefer settings with more curated options but I fail to see how that is relevant fundamentally we are discussing dwarves

We were talking about why people don't find Dwarves interesting, and I think how in a lot of stories it feels like the writers aren't interested in them but include them out of obligation is worth bringing up.

sure they should not be in every setting but they should also do well in at least one setting and they do not seem to at all.

I dispute that they don't seem to. They're not the most popular option in D&D, but they're not the least either. Games like Deep Rock Galactic and Dwarf Fortress have strong dedicated fanbases, and those games only let you play as Dwarves