I take your point Jim but I don't share it, sorry
SCs seems to me "melee oriented by definition", as they are supposed to be able to take a province with heavy enemy PD by themselves, so surely they will be engaged in melee by many enemy units and they will need to resolve it somehow... be it Fear, Awe, Petrification, AoE weapons, the Aegis or what else
As I found the thug defined in the "Thug Built" thread, it is some commander or summon, equipped in a way that gives him some value for a task but without spending lots of gem-worthy items on it (better to save those expensive items for already strong SCs to make them hopefully almost unbeatable, right?
) So, the strong archers-commanders with the specific task of feebleminding enemy commanders with the Black Bow of Botulf, or to Soul Slay large creatures with the Ethereal Crossbow, and of course the ones you find in the thread about thug builts who are used to shoot 4 fire bolas/turn or 2 charm/turn (with crown of overmight), well, they all seems fitting the definition of thugs - to me. Otherwise we don't have any definition for them yet and it seems strange to me, as we've been them around for years now
I'm not saying that you definition (about melee) of thugs is less valuable than the one I found around, or just wrong. Hell no!
I'm just saying it can be opinable, and Precision can be a factor for some builts.
Peace on you ^_^