I do not think the Pan are weak. I'm using one per army with my order race. Currently its turn 26 and I have three large armies with Pan commanding them, one has 12 maenads, one 19, one 24. The Maenads are placed at the front middle on attack closest and take steady casulties but they are still kept up to strength. As the Pan are mostly outside of my weak dominion my order is not harming them nor would having turmoil help them much.
I have conquered a powerful Pythium and I'm now beating on Marignon with the help of C'tis so I've done alot of fighting.
A Pan cost 23gps a turn to upkeep and churn out more than enough maenads to make up for this - especially as maenads have no upkeep and appear right where you need them.
I like Pan - lots. I'm playing order and maybe right now thats one of the best ways to use Pan as it makes them affordable and if you are using them actively they are not inside you dominion anyway. So do you have to play turmoil to make good use of Pan? I think not.
I think we can throw away Dom1 assessments of Pangaea's stregnth based on my experiance. powerful, forgiving, militarily flexible - just make sure you don't sneak when you mean mean to move.
Cheers
Keir