Character generation can be involved - I felt the same about Runequest: Glorantha to be honest - and not everybody wants to provide detail in character background/motivation, etc. However, I’m not really sure this has anything to do with social status. A rat catcher or sailor could have as interesting backgrounds as a noble, in my view.One of the thing's that struck me about the whole character creation process in 4e is how confused it is (and how long it takes). It wants you to roll up a random character and tries to incentivise that, then it asks you to answer questions about your character's childhood home life and decide on their motivation.
What's going on there? Am I playing a comic smelly ratcatcher or is this some kind of deep highly characterised historical epic? My seaman starts with a mop and bucket but no weapons other than a dagger, but I need to come up with a serious personal motivation for them becoming an adventurer? It's like they realise that all the comic elements are important and need to be there, but seem to have completely missed the fact that they are comic.