It's not just stats you should be thinking about. The race traits can help a lot. As a halfling I have a emergency hate reduction trait that is far better than evasion. I imagine barbarians or whatever would get hate increasers or something equally unecessary for a bard. While were on the subject, I've seen gnome guardians run around and apart from the fact they just look silly, I'm sure they are slightly gimped with the trait selection they are limited to.... Food for thought (well a light snack anyway).