Thanks for the replies guys, this is great advice. Indeed, my mistake was that I tried to use my golems for pretty much all the purposes Micah listed I shouldn't be using them for
But now that I've started to use them as raiders of lightly defended and hard to reach provinces they are working great! Can't wait to use them in mp.
As for the equipment, I hadn't realized,up until now, that marble armor gives additional protection as per stoneskin spell. I always viewed it as pretty sucktacular armor but obviously I was wrong. Very wrong. Heh.