Dear Dr. Cornelius,
I appreciate your insight and contributions on these forums, and welcome you as a brother to discuss matters pertaining to the Arena. I must say though, that I am not pleased that you would take a snippet of what I've said and claim it to be unfounded or invalid. Especially without proving your point. I do make mistakes, but you have not shown this to be one of them.
To start with, the statement you quoted was directly comparing Melee +1 with Tough -2. I discussed the Rune ability later in the post, but it had nothing to do with the statement you quoted. You failed to show me that Melee +1 and Tough -2 are not comparable traits themselves. If you will look at other posts, sIKE made very insightful comments as to how Tough becomes better when you are outnumbered and your mage is suffering from multiple attacks per round, which is much more pertinent to the quote you cited. I still maintain that that's not a situation you would want to be in though, and many players will prefer the increased damage over the increased insurance against a possible bad situation.
Second, your assumption that the Dwarf will always have the Piercing +1 Rune on his weapon is false. As silverclawgrizzly pointed out, it can and often will be Dissolved. Also, there are players who may prefer to make their weapon a Cantrip rather than giving it Piercing. That way they don't have to worry about losing it or packing a spare in their spellbook. At least that's an option I've been thinking about, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one.
Finally, if you read my entire post, you would see that I actually came to the conclusion that the Dwarf is superior to the Orc in a general sense. I just don't think it's to any great extent. The reason I think the Dwarf is superior is exactly because of his Rune ability. It is more reliable and versatile than the Veteran ability. However, the Orc still wins out on sheer aggression. All of his abilities, including all three of his Battle Orders, are aimed at increasing damage. Meanwhile, the Dwarf has only 1 Rune and 1 of his 3 Battle Orders which increase damage. Thus, the Orc will appeal to more aggressive players as being the better option for their playstyle. The benefits of the Dwarf in reliability and versatility won't matter so much to someone who just wants to beat the crap out of their opponent, and they are not great enough benefits to completely overshadow the bonus damage from the Orc, which is what those players will be looking at. Thus, the two aren't that far apart and both will see play. The Orc has not simply been replaced.
