I would just love a Dwarf that had a mechanical incentive to play it, iconic or not! I've been trying for SO LONG to figure out a build that would be the best with a Dwarf, but everything else seems to work better than Dwarf.
THF DPS? Orcs are better
TWF DPS? Humans are better
Casters? Everybody else is better (I mean, you get a small number of extra hitpoints, so I guess at low levels, there's some argument, but that's about it)
Ranged? No particular benefit for Dwarf
Divines? Dwarves can get D-Axes as favored weapons, but that still feels like a flavor choice.
My best idea that a Dwarf might be marginally better has been a melee SWF Artificer, but even still I'm not so sure if I'm not just grasping at straws. (Please correct me if you can think of a build that works *best* as a Dwarf.)
So (1) Yes, I think a Dwarven Iconic would be fantastic!
And (2) I would love if just the regular Dwarf was tweaked to make it better. (Great Axes as favored weapons as well as DAxes? That would certainly do it. Or a racial chance for a secondary shield bash maybe? If not those, maybe a racial Heavy Armor Proficiency?)