[DrPraetorious]

The following are sometimes regarded as choice. These do not include indies that come out of sites, and I'm ignoring mages:
* Hoburg Xbowmen - for the reasons you mentioned.
* Longbowmen - good archery/$, same deal.
* Raptors - suck, but they do fly, so some people like them a lot.
* Elephants - can help early expansion of conquered early.
* Kappa - are the best deal in amphibious troops.
* Amazon Cavalry - can be highly effective when combined with a strong bless.

The following also see use:
* Tribal shortbowmen / woodsmen / atavi - are much better than civilized shortbowmen (strat move 2).
* Light infantry / tribal warriors / atavi - are just chaff, but do have the strat move of 2.
* Lizard warriors, Cavemen - are fairly fearsome given their low *resource* cost, so people recruit them when they need forces in a hurry.
* Shamblers, Icythids - to get into the water.
* Any water unit - for chaff in the water, people will recruit just whatever water poptype they happen to get.
* Human crossbowmen - are generally too resource intensive to mass, but some people use them.
* Knights - likewise, and they always come at the expense of longbowmen. Some people put up big forts on Knight provinces and recruit them anyway.

There are some other exotic troops - asmeg, trolls - but I'm not sure if those poptypes are ever placed randomly.