What are we playing? Is the idea to be given a set of stats and traits and play them in a game setting to the best of your ability? Or are you creating a game-piece customized within a set of rules in order to play in a game setting to the best of your ability?
In Monopoly you may chose to be the dog, the battleship, the iron or the race car (although why anyone would NOT chose to be the race car is beyond me) and the only differentiation is the shape. But imagine they had different traits. The car gets to move one extra property per turn. The boat may move an extra property IF the dice indicates it lands on a property NOT named after a body of water. The dog prevents any other player from landing on either side of it. And so on. Are we still playing Monopoly? Probably not but there are a TON of house rules to the game so work with me here.
In version one you still get to pick which token you use, and you select the one that fits your game style the most (?.) In version two there's a blind draw to see which token each player gets. In version three you may select the token you get BUT the “trait” is then modified by the roll of a d6. Are these three games THAT different? Which would you prefer?
It seems that being handed character sheets that only differ in the picture of the character is the base game. Everybody is the same class/race with the same Big Six. Might be interesting but not gonna fly long-term. Each of the proposed versions above seems to be (loosely) correlated to various character creation methods.
Over time the methods for creating a character have stayed more or less the same, but the ORDER of creation (and locus of control) has changed. DM's initially controlled generating the Big Six with the player making subsequent decisions. 3D6 in order WAS a thing! Minimum requirements had to be met. Wanna play a Paladin? Probably not gonna happen. You're out of luck. Here's your Big Six in order. NOW pick a race (and get some modifiers) then a class (more modifiers) and you're done. Didn't qualify for the race/class you wanted? Suicide by monster and start over. NOT good game play. Good game play would be taking taking the character you got and adventuring to the best of your ability.
At one point different dice were rolled for different skills based on character/class. And it's looking like ONE is turning classes and races into a gray mass of differences without distinctions. Dogs and irons and race cars. Ah … but then you choose your BACKGROUND! And stuff gets “different.” Like in the second 'graph above. Perhaps version three in 'graph three.
LONG post to get to a different question: is your “goal” playing D&D to explore the world and see what happens? OR is it to create the coolest half-gnome half-orc multi-class artificer monk and see how they interact with the world? And this is where I get kinda harsh perhaps. If you're looking to play the second type of character then a series of disconnected one-shots will meet your needs. But if you're looking fro the first you need a more complex interconnected world. The second type of player will love the ONE method of character creation. Type one would be happy (and challenged) with a strict 3d6 in order, give me a race, a class, and a name and I'll give you the rest kinda game.
Perhaps another way of asking is: Do you consider D&D to be a game about PLAYER skill or CHARACTER skill?
note: after I wrote this I had a LONG tm exchange with two other DM's about this topic. Disagreement brought me no closer to a viable understanding.
Edit to add: Alexis over at the Tao of D&D has a running series on this topic that started my trip down this rabbit hole
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