The blindness you speak of is not really present on this server that allows GAMMA settings in the options. By end-game, its easy for all wizard races to reach the soft cap of 200INT. Dark elves are KOS to most good races, but this is offset by their racial HIDE. While not amazing, hide will allow you to become invis to both living and dead mobs at the same time, without a cast time (assuming it doesn't fail) for indefinite period of time (while stationary). Also, wizards apparantly do not get IVU until Velious. Gnomes, on the other hand, get the tinkering ability, for whatever that is worth.
TL;DR: Pick wizard based on the factions you care about dealing with if you are a min/maxer, pick the race you like looking at for 60 levels if you want to enjoy your character.
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