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Perhaps part of the reason may be that people find it difficult to relate to races they know nothing about - the race becomes little more than a name and a few stat modifiers. For muds which focus on roleplaying this can be quite a large problem. On the other hand, the typical fantasy races are fairly well defined throughout literature and provide a point of reference for new players.
That's also a reason. People typically play fantasy muds because they enjoy that sort of genre - and for the same reason, they're likely to play muds based on a theme that they enjoy. Someone who's just watched LotR might fancy playing a LotR mud, while someone who's read Wheel of Time might want to play a mud based on that theme. But if I connect to a Lord of the Rings mud, the last thing I want to see is a cyborg squirrel-man race, no matter how original it might be.
Every theme will place restrictions on your design, unless you're creating a inconsistent hodgepodge of anything that comes to mind (which is a bad idea). The disadvantage of basing your theme on someone else's work (aside from legal implications) is that the thematic restrictions are defined by them rather than you. The advantage is that you have a well-known theme which is likely to be far more complete and better thought out than something you could put together yourself.
I don't think you can really define the creativity of a mud by its race selection.
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