I agree, Baalz. No one is trying to argue that Productivity is never useful.. it's just that it is less so, more often, than the other scales except maybe growth. Especially in the late game where productivity is basically worthless, even for MA Ulm.
Take this example. Order is generally accepted to be the best scale by most people. I'd go so far as to say that
any strategy which uses Turmoil is suspect as far as being competitive. I mean, you can't just take Turmoil off the cuff without a specialized strategy (such as Turmoil/Luck, and/or Pangea's menaeds) and expect to compete. The points you get from Turmoil simply aren't worth being spent anywhere else than on buying back your Order again.
Think about Productivity/Sloth again. Imagine if someone said, "Any strategy using Sloth is suspect as far as viability!"
That is just so funny it makes me giggle. Like for 60-70% or more of strategies, you can take Sloth and just spend those points elsewhere and be probably even more competitive.
I'd say Magic is somewhere in the middle. You can take Drain, you can take Magic, it sort of doesn't matter -- I mean it depends on your strategy and your race.
So, it seems clear that Productivity could use a boost. Back to the Ulm situation, if we boost Productivity, Ulm gets boosted as well, cause they always take Prod-3. So, it's a win-win.