So, you're telling me that Baldurs Gate 3 or Cyberpunk 2077 also have character sheets like from the tabletop RPGs of the same name, right? Right?
No. I am telling you that both Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and Vampire the Masquerade (PnP) both have character sheets in terms of character creation, so trying to blame Bloodlines for "couldn't actually create a character, only allocate points in the character sheet" is a pretty dumb argument. If you want to use it, then Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption is a much better candidate as it does not allow you to create your own character at all (his name, gender or even his clan are story-bound).
The fundamental issue is about ownership.
It's easy to feel a sense of ownership of the Bloodlines protagonist because they are silent. You name them and you interprete everything they say with your mind's eye. Sure, if we had the ability to customize their appearance then that ownership would have been enhanced, but it's still there.
With Bloodlines 2 we have lost that sense of ownership over and over. First we would play
a thinblood. Then we'd play
an Elder. Now we get to play
a Phyre. The named, voiced protagonist does a lot to dissociate us from the character. The idea is founded on customization not as an enhancement, but in place of ownership. So people want to be able to have their Phyre be male, to be able to change their Phyre's haircut, and some even dream of changing their Phyre's face. Edit: interesting to note that all of these customizations were the bare minimum expected in Mitsoda's Bloodlines, now the handful of optimists left are grasping for them like they are lost in the desert and in need of water.
I suspect the devs and the execs themselves think this is a very minor difference - and that they are just making things objectively better by adding a well defined protagonist. But from my point of view (and from what I've seen from other people) this change from CRPG to a Mass Effect inspired opera might be a dealbreaker for way too many customers.
Personally, I have a lot of tolerance for jank when it comes to a Bloodlines 2. I don't mind the premise for the game either. I wouldn't even mind if the character sheet turned into a skill tree. But I removed the game from my wishlist the moment they changed the nature of the protagonist. That's the biggest genre shift they could have done. I would have sooner bought a janky mess in place of this.