There's this guys called Quarian Master Race that disagrees with you. I do too actually. Asari's are Protheans 2.0.
Kneel before your goddesses.
Asari would be perfect if it wasn't for Ardat-Yakshis and that pureblood stigma nonsense.
Might as well add my input. It helps me think through things. The first few pages seemed to give these as reasons why the Asari are NOT superior.
LOW BIRTH RATE: This seems to be mostly due to the Asari keeping their population in check. I mean, during the Asari matron stage, there is a good 350 years with the desire to settle down and raise children. Given how somebody as crude and sex-focused as Aethyta has given birth to multiple children, I imagine it's not related to lack of interest or medical problems. Asari look at things in the long term after all, so I can easily see the Asari being obsessed with keeping their population in check.
WEAK TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS: It was said that Asari should be far more advanced than they already are considering how they had the Prothean beacon. But really, each species have their own field of technology that they're good at.
Salarians - Security, medical advancements, and innovations in general.
Turians - An assortment of military tech. Thanix Cannon
Asari - Omni-tools/biotic amps. Silaris Armor
Quarian - Ship technology in general. Cyclonic Barrier Technology
Humans - Nothing really. Mass Effect bias gives humans a "jack of all trades, and master of ALL", so...
Much of this technology is freely shared too. If the Asari displayed superior technology, it wouldn't take long for other species to steal it. And if the Asari kept coming up with new and better innovations at a rapid pace, yet with very little information on where it came from, well, the other races would quickly grow suspicious.
DIDN'T HEED REAPER WARNINGS: It was said that the Asari should have been better prepared, but really, they already said they were securing their own borders. By the time you can visit Thessia's system, you already know some colonies have already been targeted/attacked by Reapers. The Asari military has already been fighting against the reapers, and even managed to put them on the defensive. They couldn't have prepared any more than the Turians/Humans could have.
THESSIA DIDN'T HOLD OUT LONG: When it comes to ground warfare, the main weakness for Turians and Humans are numbers. They have the numbers and military might that can easily pit them up against Brutes and Harvesters, but they can be overwhelmed by enough Husks. Thus the reapers send out tons of Husks to defeat Turians/Humans through a battle of attrition. It takes time, but they end up achieving victory with relatively low losses.
The Asari, on the other hand, can defeat an enemy with numerical superiority through their hit-and-run tactics as well as biotic powers. Husks, Cannibals, and (to a degree) Marauders would be decimated by Asari forces. A battle of attrition wouldn't work, as combat wouldn't last long. Brutes, Ravagers, Banshees, and Harversters, on the other hand, can do a lot of damage quickly and would take time to take down. The Asari lost so fast because they could not sustain against both overwhelming force and overwhelming numbers. It's not their lack of military might, but the fact that their strategy completely fails against a force like Reapers.
HID KNOWLEDGE OF PROTHEAN ARTIFACT: I may be biased, but I still think this was just bad writing. A deus ex machina to fit the purposes of the game. Yet even if this realistically happened, the blame lies on not the Asari, but a seperatist group. It's like saying it's humanities fault for Cerberus helping the reapers. The Asari have no leaders after all. The Matriarchs with knowledge of the artifact acted independently.
As for reasons why the asari ARE superior:
LIFESPAN: The asari end up being the most experienced of all other races. Even the krogan won't be as experienced, as they focus solely on fighting. This can become a HUGE advantage.
BIOTIC TALENT: Every asari has the capability to use biotic powers. There are apparently a fair amount that don't focus on training their biotics (which doesn't make sense considering how useful/cool biotics are), yet this is still a huge advantage compared to other species. Especially since I don't think there's a reason why most biotic powers can't affect shields/armor.
MELDING: Reproduction purposes aside, the asari can transfer information through melding. I would honestly expect the asari to take advantage of this and share knowledge quickly. Bonding may be a personal experience, but why not share information passed down from mother to daughter? Or if two people are willing to exchange information? I can think of reasons why not, but that'd rely on a lot of assumptions.
MAIDEN STAGE: Honestly, Mass Effect messed up with this big time. This stage is supposed to be characterized by a drive to explore and experience new things. Yet we usually hear about maidens who spend their time dancing in bars and joining gangs. There is only so much you can learn from dancing in a bar, and given that Thessia has such a low rate of crime, I find it unlikely there is much gang activity. I have to assume that the majority of asari Maidens actually spend their time studying/researching/training in various fields.
FAST CULTURAL ADAPTATION: Asari are big about learning from other cultures. The more diversity, the more advancement that can be made basically. On the other hand, most other species, especially humans, are all about individuality, and that can halt progress.
FEW WARS: Of all the wars you hear about, it's always started due to another species. The turians had a huge civil war recently, and quickly went to war with humanity. The quarians went to war with the geth and ended up losing. Humanity has had more wars than most other species in the past 300 years (aka our own history). The asari, on the other hand, have almost no history of wars. Back when they were a collection of 'city-states', they bartered freely with each other and tried to understand each other. They are best known for their diplomacy, something all other races basically suck at (Shepard's magic luck aside).
BIGGEST ECONOMY: The asari have the largest monopoly on omni-tools and biotic amplifiers. They are said to have large amounts of trade/social contacts. The asari could deal a lot of damage if they stopped trading with the Alliance or the Salarian Union.
BEST MILITARY AGAINST COUNCIL RACES: Humans, turians, salarians, and etc. have almost no chance against the asari. As unlikely as a war would be, the asari would dominate any war. Their guerrilla tactics would defeat traditional militaries (especially the turians). One on one, a trained asari is unmatched. Specialized missions such as ambush, infiltration, and assassination could wreak havoc on enemy forces.
Plus there is the fact that the asari have 21 dreadnoughts. In comparison, the turian fleet has 39, salarians 16, and humans 8.
Granted, asari probably aren't the type to advocate supremacy over the other races, so it's a moot point in the first place. Plus I'm rather biased.
I feel like responding to these two posts for fun, not arguing pro or anti asari overall though.
Low Birth Rate - Indeed. I get the sense that multiple children happen, but they're over the course of centuries and they're more planned than any other race (except perhaps Salarians). The pre-Council age of Asari may have had more numerous children but it seems that the gist for a while now has been a mix of having fewer and planned children, and mingling with other races, and to an extent welcoming other races into their territory more than others would (knowing that any children produced will be asari). They could steadily dominate in population if they tried, but they do not consider that an intelligent course of action. There are the theories that asari leaders do wish to take over the galaxy bit-by-bit in births and absorbing societies, but that remains anti-asari theory.
Weak Tech Innovations - Actually, the gist I got was that asari are the overall betters, but their innovations are also just, well, overall ones. That they're on the vanguard of generally used tech, but otherwise get beat by others. The turians go for military applications. The salarians go for higher level of tech (they experiment more) seeking an edge; this does not mean being an overall better. The quarians have ships and synthetics. And I get the sense that the humans are like a lower level of asari - there's lines that almost imply that, like Miranda speaking of asari society as something to aspire to. Though while asari look long game, humanity may upstage them in looking at the short and mid game. It may be the ME3 war that ends up putting humanity over asari but that's very up to opinion, and asari may still very well continue to get their overall edge. Don't look for them to as often go "I have this solution for this thing right now!", but they may, especially during peacetime, have a consistent stream of improvements down a pipeline.
Don't Heed Reaper Warnings/Thessia Didn't Hold Out Long - I think there's the official face and there's the unofficial face. The official face denies, but would have to admit that something is up. The unofficial face plans and figures things out, but not to the extent of actually believing in the Reapers. I think the Council races, all of them, knew they had to keep society, economy, military running and ready for anything, but it wasn't most often to the extent of being ready for the actual Reapers. So sure, the asari didn't heed Reaper warnings, but they didn't completely stick their heads in the ground either - just possibly more than the other races. I think they seek stability over all, and the extent of the Reaper threat is so unstable that they were the most in denial about it (though the Turian Councilor denied it more, it may have been more in his personal anti-human sentiment). So agreed, they should have been better prepared. The big main weakness of the asari is, apparently, their belief in overall superiority (even moral, planning, etc - not just for combat). A superiority that seems to be, most often, in most ways true, but in itself is something that can be exploited and having them panicking.
And agreed - it may have not been shown on screen, but the asari had been fighting the Reapers since the first half of the game. Reaper forces headed for at least the fringes of asari space since hitting Palaven, keeping them busy, so when the asari councilor says that they need to secure their borders, while we may be Angry Shepard about it, its technically a very solid plan for a TYPICAL sort of invasion, and we're just mad because we have a history of them minimizing our concerns, dismissing much evidence we have, and rejecting our experiences. Anyway, during the Rannoch arc the asari are well into the fight and Thessia itself is being threatened, and then its attacked and we have a period (Sanctuary, Other Stuff?, Cronos) where they're in the fight as much as anyone else.
Asari were ready to protect their territorial borders but they lost it so they had relatively less defenses after that (no one had ever breached in such a way before - again, a hubris of their supposed sense of superiority). They were also the best to take on husk forces overall, but the Reapers figured that out and probably swarmed them the most of anyone they invaded. In a way, they kicked ass better than at least most, but the Reapers apparently had enough of them and crushed them hard. Its like how asari commandos are the 'best'. Sure they're the best but there's also not as many of them and as commandos there are various ways to exploit their organization and methods.
Hid Knowledge of Prothian Artifact - I partially disagree. In the politics of the asari, the Matriarchs of Thessia are indeed in a whole (albeit fluid) class of leadership and I tend to think that counts enough. It may have been a faction within them that knew of this, but it was enough for the councilor herself to say "highest level of our government". Its not the whole people, but it IS their political leaders. Is Hackett the Alliance? I'd friggin say so. No matter their reasoning, the story of ME3 has it as the asari republics being liars and criminals about the laws on prothian technology. Especially since asari government is rather fluid and ought to have caught on to, exposed, and fixed the situation of hoarding prothian information. A flaw I could claim of the asari (though also everyone else) is hypocrisy. This all said, this isn't a matter to rationally demonize the asari over. There's a lot of context about it that makes clear that, as you said, the knowledge was very exclusive. We can call the asari to be more sneaky than they present to people (especially with info over the trilogy about stuff like AY and the refuges for them), but not evil or worse than anyone else. Just not perfect - unlike most of their portrayal in ME1 save for some cranky NPCs and Benezia being indoctrinated.
Lifespan - Agreed. They're the outright best here. Could be surpassed with medical tech, but in the trilogy they live the longest.
Biotics - Again agreed. Another example of 'overall best'. There may be misc others that are better than the average asari, but they're misc. Humanity/Cerberus seemed to be trying to find ways to get biotics that is at least on par with asari though, and not wait decades/centuries+ to maybe get it to happen. Many asari don't practice their biotics just because its a normal skill to them that isn't a big deal. We may see the world through a soldier/agent/war lens more often than not (even in the locations we visit), but most asari don't, and many see biotic practice as essential as we see swimming - aka helpful and probably easy enough, but not necessarily essential. But almost no asari would have a barrier to biotics, yes. Any amps for them would be the bonus, not the required tool.
Melding - Yeah the whole melding stuff is probably very useful. It communicates in a way that isn't very concrete, so not often as good as sharing computer data, but it can convey messages and feelings and genetics and probably even affect the way each other sees the world. 'Knowledge' in a general sense. Other races do not have this. Humans might be starting to gain this if theories about Shepard are true, but again like biotics is just not at their level overall. Drell retain 'perfect' memories but that doesn't have to do with transmitting anything. Hanar communicate on a atypical wavelength but it isn't as deep and personal as asari can when they meld. The asari may not be a more literal hivemind, but they do share qualities of it that maintain a strong integrity of their species, and having more asari be more like other asari, something in cases that would be a rather useful quality, than humans would be like other humans. They're rather more unified than others are (even if the trilogy takes care to show exceptions), and their melding ability is probably a big part of that.
Maiden - To be clear, exploring bars on other planets, making money off their sexuality, and getting a thrill from joining mercs is still something that qualifies the description for the Maiden stage, just as human male teen/youth competitive streaks can be expressed through physical violence or rising the ranks of a company. We can be sure that most maidens do not take this more seedy path, but ENOUGH do that it is a CONCERN to those paying attention, or especially watching it all from Illium as a bartender or with experience dealing with Omega 
. Think of it as a very extended rebellious teenage phase that even includes running away from home, while most other teens conform enough to stay at home and do their studies. Sure it would have been nice to see more of the peaceful asari lands but the portrayal so far isn't something I'd consider broken. They do make the points in ME1 of having Liara be more innocent, ME2 where Illum is still a sign of how relatively peaceful asari space is, and ME3 where we get all sorts of stories about Thessia etc.
Fast Cultural Adaptation - Yeah, they're relatively quick to adapt and yet do it slow enough to not bring the accusations of appropriation and domination. This is one of their biggest pluses on the galactic stage, and a source of the theories that the supposed peace of the asari is in fact just a very very non-violent invasion 
Few Wars - Totally agree. Though they do seem to have the downside of being unable to win a war alone. We don't know of pre-Council asari much, but the others had wars internally and finished them, and the Council era wars also got finished by a side that was arguably much more of non-asari than asari. It can be said that the asari are just so good at ducking and weaving around actually both starting and ending wars, but it can also be said that it was this quality of them that had them seem to be relatively useless against the Reapers, as a society overall. It certainly didn't seem to be the asari that gathered the races against the Reapers this time, at least (unlike the rachni and krogan).
Biggest Economy - Definitely. It may compete heavily with a bunch of other economies and increasingly the humans, and the volus may have disproportionate economic influence, but the asari seem to have the biggest presence overall. Anyone else, even the volus, bowing out could still mean there's an economy, but I feel that the asari disappearing would basically mean everything is shattered and would have to start from scratch.
Best Military - Agreed but also disagreed. Disagreed because I do think that if the ONLY asari matched off against ONLY the turians, the turians stand a damn good or maybe even better chance of winning. But agreed because there's almost no chance that the asari would go solo into a war, whereas the turians look like they'd be content to. There would almost certainly be an alliance of asari and someone else. Its easy to imagine all sorts of war simulations done by the turians to see if they could in fact defeat the asari, and finding that the asari would almost always have the salarians (and/or more) and turn the tide, so even the most expansionist and independent turians just go "Okay... we'll be content with being on the council and holding more influence than the others on some matters.", ha.
I think if the asari focused on military growth as much as the turians do, they'd beat anyone, but I think they ultimately think longer term than that and are okay with being considered 2nd on that matter, as long as they have the confidence they'd win the actual conflict through their own means.
Then of course the krogan arguably had the best military in the past but they also burned out, even if they would argue it was through very devious and cheap means (genophage).
So basically I mostly agree except on a few points.
Are the asari the master race? No, and the story is a bit about that. But they were at least a supposed existing apex race until the Reapers invaded or Humanity rose, and either of those things were ME3, not ME1-ME2. That fits into the theme that became pretty big by the end of ME3, of apex never really being apex, and of chaotic surprises always being possible.
I describe the asari to others as 'better than most of the others in most ways, but exploited hard by some of the others in some ways'.
Could be done. Humanity could throw a monkey wrench (pardon the pun) into the works. However, even The Illusive Man was banging a couple of Asari Matriarchs on a regular basis. So was the best for humanity... the Asari?
How could humanity monkey wrench it exactly?
I couldn't resist the opportunity to use the pun.
But seriously. They've been on the galactic scene for 30 years. There was the First Contact War. The Skyllian Blitz. The Batarian terrorism. The perception perpetrated by Charles "Trump" Saracino that humanity is losing to aliens and he wants to make Earth great again. "Earth First!" "Build The Wall!"
Now if the Asari had previously pacified the Turians and Salarians, but had secretly built up units like the elite Serrice Guard. And remember, the galaxy thinks the Asari accomplished everything without the benefit of a Prothean Archive. So there's that.
Here's an example of what the Asari have to overcome with humans:
I sent these by PM.....
You've obviously watched the American election. You know what's happening. Think when the squid heads arrive.
"You humans are all racists."
Could be done. Humanity could throw a monkey wrench (pardon the pun) into the works. However, even The Illusive Man was banging a couple of Asari Matriarchs on a regular basis. So was the best for humanity... the Asari?
T.I.M does want the best for Humanity....So why gain some favor with the Asari so he can borrow some of their technology.
Hopefully Andromeda maintains the tradition of having a gorgeous, intelligent and deadly Asari accompanying us as we settle a new galaxy.
Was the Asari was ever diplomatic?
The more I read about them, the more I'm convinced their political scene was a group of super b1tchy beautiful old crones with their own cult being passive-aggressive about anything that doesn't involve their special interest. I thought they like to sit things through for a couple of centuries and let the worse blew over and the multiple of times where they expect someone to save their collective asses (Krogan for the Rachni Wars, Turian for the Krogan Rebellions, Humans for the bloody Destiny Ascension, the Ardat-Yakshi monastery and since when did Thessia became Shepard's fault).
The Asari most likely prevented humanity from being completely conquered by the Turians, or at least their Councilor did, since it was the Council that forced an armistice to the First Contact War before the Turians could mobilize their entire fleet.
We don't know how exactly the votes broke down on the Council, but the Turian Councilor being against and the Asari and Salarian Councilors voting for a negotiated peace seems likely.
The Asari also founded the Council and invited the Elcor to join, after guiding them to the Citadel. All would certainly be examples of the species being diplomatic.
The Turians are one of the Council races themselves and I can't remember where I read it, probably the codex or one of those Cerberus news, but the Turian Hierarchy themselves wasn't supportive about the three months conflict at Shanxi. They even offer reparations and tried to mend ties with the Alliance military even when they're still relatively hostile to each other.
I think people should stop thinking the Asari are kind, gentle and motherly because they're all women. They can be just as pragmatic, calculating and brutal and certainly don't fit the human female gender norms. Their species don't survive through the last cycle merely by chance and I doubt finding Citadel and uplifting other species was purely about "cultural dominance and intellectual superiority". They're not a race of damsels in distress. Even Liara use extreme emotional manipulation to make Shepard love her, which is very creepy btw.
The lore on the First Contact War (ME1 codex) specifically states that the Turians were in the process of mobilizing their fleets to conquer the Systems Alliance, when the Council intervened and forced a cease fire.
*If* the Turian Councilor sided with the other two Councilors, he or she would have been at odds with his or her own government. It just seems more likely that s/he would have been a dissenting vote and overruled by the other two.
There could have been some realpolitck involved there, with the Salarians and Asari not wanting the Turians to acquire too large an empire and upset the balance of powers, but even so it would still be an example of diplomacy. Diplomacy doesn't involve abandoning self-interest.
Bringing the Turians into an alliance against the Krogan is also an example of diplomacy.
Hopefully Andromeda maintains the tradition of having a gorgeous, intelligent and deadly Asari accompanying us as we settle a new galaxy.
I hope no, dawg.
No? But who will we romance?I hope no, dawg.
The lore on the First Contact War (ME1 codex) specifically states that the Turians were in the process of mobilizing their fleets to conquer the Systems Alliance, when the Council intervened and forced a cease fire.
*If* the Turian Councilor sided with the other two Councilors, he or she would have been at odds with his or her own government. It just seems more likely that s/he would have been a dissenting vote and overruled by the other two.
I think its merely this one line; "The turians mobilized for full-scale war, drawing the attention of the rest of the galaxy. The Council quickly intervened, forcing a truce. Fortunately for humanity, the First Contact War was ended with a diplomatic solution."
But there's an expanded version from Mass Effect Revelations:
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