[Lorraine]

Play what ever you feel like - Your character, your decision, eventually.

Just be prepared to live with the decision, which ever that is.

Dark elves get Ring of the Dead, so at least that's a compromise.
In my opinion, you should have a weapon available for each skill, and try to keep them up on par as much as you can. It might be hard initially, with the melee hard cap in place and all, but it might be worth the bother. And if you're going Dark Elf, then Shield Bash will be your only source of spellcasting interupts until you get a hold of Epic.