Alex, the first half of your initial post was essentially about blood magic being more abusive in Dom2 than in Dom1. I have not seen anything like that in beta (Mictlan is good, but have so many other weaknesses). I think limiting sanguine rods to blood mages is a big part of the answer also for blood nations. Of course my examples were limited (I didn't think they would be that hard to understand though
).
The speed factor is very important, I agree - still even for Abysia in Dom1 I found it both much cheaper and faster!! to use blood mages primarily to forge sanguine rods for cheap commanders (which of course come in unlimited supply). I am sorry for thinking you did the same (out of curiosity though - was the majority of your hunters mages or cheap commanders?)
Now, I am really sorry that I don't have the time to do anything like the extensive tests you excell at. I do think that to prove to us sceptics that hunting with scouts is a valid strategy you must show that you don't lose to much speed in expansion. I saw that you conquered 36 provinces in 20 turns in Pocus test and consider 1500 gold income by turn 20 to be a standard for competitive play. What is the best you can do by turn 20 while reaching 420 slaves and blood 5 in research??