[Baalz]

Yeah, all the scales obviously are strat/nation dependent, but I think the people who "never" take a certain scale is more a testament to the player's temperament and playstyle than anything else.

Luck/Order loses some synergy but can be a reasonable choice in certain situations - say Arcoscephale. You've already got a pretty good magic diversity and great initial expansion, your ROI for investing in a pretender is lower. Though of course others would play it differently I think you have a hard time making the case that Luck/Order is not a competitive strategy.

Similarly, productivity can situationally be very useful. I know everybody is typically down on MA Ulm but leaving that argument aside for a second I can't imagine trying to play them with a sloth scale. Another example would be a Sauromatia strategy with an early/mid game built around the cap-only poison archers which I've personally employed to good effect. Even after you've captured every border to your cap you're still recruiting the max every turn and putting each unit to good use. You've got some great resource intensive heavy cavalry at the rest of your castles. Again, there are obviously other ways to play it but this is a competitive strategy compared to an expansion pretender particularly when you remember the income boost that is bundled with productivity.

Magic/growth vs order, again, situation. If I'm taking a race who's prospects are tied to MR rolls (like, say, R'yleh) I generally consider the magic scale to be more important than order. If I'm gonna have a lot of expensive old mages I usually prioritize growth over order once you consider the opportunity cost of mage replacement and long term population growth.