I'm pretty sure that they won't implement stock fantasy races into the base game. They have the tools that will allow the modding community to do that kind of work for them. As far as the sovereign thing, it really depends on the game balance, especially because the game touts the kind of decisions where your sovereign spends his essence on things which is supposed to make him weaker. Age of Wonders had that game mode where if you lost your "king" hero you lost the game. It was fun actually, but I'm not sure it should be the default.
Either way, keep the impressions/updates coming as new stuff gets released.
