[Illuminated One]

1) They are not sacred. 280 gold is not much, but you will have to get them with 1/10 of the others income (after upkeep), so you are always outnumbered magewise. You can take very good scales to offset your domkill to a point but I get the feeling these are wasted points.
6) Same thing - besides your communion slaves go insane.
4) Yeah, but it illustrates the weakness of the chaff quite well. They can't kill anything with a good prot - even if it's are paralyzed. So they are really just there to die in droves while someone else does the job, and it's almost a weakness that they turn up (since if they didn't you had the gold to recruit better stuff). Sending them to die is a chore, 1 province water movement, lack of sane commanders, etc.