Well, Pythium is arguably the strongest MA race, so lets leave angels out of this.
With regards to FotA my point was to address your question of why Ulm benefited more than other nations under the forge. Using a very simplified example, assuming you're just forging 25 gems worth of 5 gem items per turn then investing gems in the FotA for most nations will net you an extra 7 items per turn, with Ulm it'll net you an extra 16. That's (significantly) more ROI for each gem put into the forge than most nations if you're counting it as items you can forge. I think your thinking is that it doesn't matter if it costs 1 gem or 2 I can still forge all I want...well, if you're summoning expensive angels end game you're probably right that you won't have much trouble keeping up with the forging, but if you're scrabbling to bootstrap your research on a modest gem income outputting triple the lightless lanterns is significant, and every gem you save is one more for summoning something to put the items on (with your pretender or indie mages). Heck, if you save 10 gems forging a full set of gear you just got a "free" Awaken Sleeper to stick it on. If you trade it away for even more profit, heck maybe you just netted a "free" golem. I understand where you're coming from re: them not having nearly as good uses for the items as some other nations which is a valid position, but to my mind tangential to the discussion of the benefit of the FotA. The forge gives more of a benefit to Ulm, being able to capitalize on it is a different issue (though as I said, I understand what you mean).