No, I didn't write that particular text; I suspect Jeff Grubb did, or Karen Boomgaarden [yes, that's her correct preferred surname spelling, not mistyping] did, following an internal TSR design decision.
It's one I agree with as a designer, though, because it makes possible some of the already-by-then-written-into-lore racial haughtiness of the drow and the gold or high elves, and it avoids the morass of "special" elf crossbreeds that gamers were at the time submitting to The Dragon (as DRAGON Magazine was known back then) as articles promoting their own elf subraces that had daily racial spells plus gold-flecked eyes that could shoot firebeams, or daily racial spells plus silver-flecked eyes that could shoot lightning bolts, and (my personal favourite) the elves that shat sapphires (talk about a personal neverending money source; the writer seemed to have no idea that if such crossbreeds grew numerous, the value of sapphires would fall to almost nothing, and had instead postulated that they'd already secretly become the equivalent of billionaires, and hence the Secret Masters of most kingdoms, bankrolling kings and guilds alike).
