[Baalz]

Drawbacks of high misfortune:
You never can take turmoil
You very rarely can take death
You get no (or very few) national heroes
It costs you gold/gems/population both directly and as a hidden cost (the positive events you never get)
It costs you labs/temples/castles, both directly and as a hidden cost
You regularly get attacked by indies
It can cripple you in the first few turns if you're unlucky
It increases your micro

Outside of (obviously) reversing the above, benefits of luck:
Increases your magic diversity, through random gem events and random mages joining you (your national heroes can often help with this as well)
Lumpy income can make it easier to fund larger projects (ie you just got a large gold event so can afford that castle you were having trouble saving for)
Possibility of getting items/boosters you can't forge
A significant portion of your income can't be hit by spies, pillaging, or unrest causing rituals. True, there are some spells which raise misfortune, but to significantly impact your overall income they'd have to hit a significant portion of your kingdom rather than a handful of your best provinces.


One choice that I think is overlooked by the "gold is king, I only take Order/Misfortune" crowd is Order/Luck. True, the synergy is against you, but as your nation grows you start hitting that 3 event limit anyway and have the best gold income possible. I haven't dug into it, but I'm assuming some really good events are tied to order/luck scales. I find order/luck/death to be a very competitive setup...