I shall jump on the LA-Ulm-isn't-underpowered bandwagon. A blood economy isn't that hard to start up: 3-4 Second Tiers and a nearby province and you'll be churning out enough slaves to summon a count or two in short order. Once the counts have been summoned, you then start relying on Blood-Random Fortune Tellers and Vampire Counts to boost the blood economy.
Early research is a problem, but it's a problem that doesn't last for too long. A major point of LA Ulm would be to put up castles ASAP. At 5RP for 170/5.67 gold, or 34/1.13 gold per Research point at Magic-1, Iron Priests are fairly cost effective researchers. While not the best, Ulm can certainly keep up in the research race beyond the first few months (where your mages will go directly into blood hunting), and certainly towards the midgame (with lightless lantern spam and/or skull mentors (if you really need it). At 4 gems a pop with their forge bonus, it's fairly cost-effective even without a dwarven hammer (which will simply reduce the gem cost by 1, and you need your earth gems for other things)).
I'd argue that Ulm is a fairly difficult nation to rush. No nation reliant on sacreds are going to go near Ulm, for the simple matter of ghoul guardians. I posted the test results in the CBM thread, but I think they clearly demonstrate ghoul guardians slaughtering dual-blessed sacreds. Elephants are easy to beat with Rats tails (+4 Animal Awe+Greater Fear on x2Attack+Const-2+N1), which are easily forgeable by Nature-Random Fortune Tellers. A Hochmeister with a Rat's Tail with one black templar bodyguard or two can rout many an elephant (not to mention elephants are expensive). If we compare Ulm's troops to Marignon's, they're nearly identical. The pikemen and halberdiers are the same in price and cost, and have identical stats except for HP and MR (+2 HP vs. +1 MR). Comparing Rangers to Crossbows, Rangers cost +3 gold, but has +2 Precision, Stealthy, Forest Survival, and are better in close combat then Crossbows. Men-at-Arms are +2 gold and -1 resources compared to Infantry of Ulm, and are better overall in close quarter combat, but Infantry perform better in their intended role, i.e. arrow catchers. The lower MR isn't really felt by Ulm during expansion and the early game. Who's going to mass units to exploit that weakness early on, mindblasting R'lyeh? They have the gold for that?
When we move on into the mid-game, where nations will certainly start putting together MR reliant counters, you can easily put up Anti-magic and/or spam Tempering the Will with or without communions. Therefore, while the units aren't awesome, they certainly aren't crap.
While expanding can be a pain, there are actually several methods you can take beyond just the simple xbows+bows/shields technique. Certainly templars can be used as a quick and easy expansion methods against most indies, and Call Lesser Horror+retreat is also a viable expansion method (one that works similarly for, say, Bogarus), if you choose to go down that path. Expansion might not be as easy as, say, Mictlan and dual-blessed jags, but they can do it well enough. You just need to get creative, and find a good combination of the three.
Generally, I'd say it's a pretty good nation with a strong end-game (with Astral, Death, AND Blood). There can be minor tweaks made to it, for example lowering the cost of counts (this is something I suggest, although it may mean even larger armies of chaff for Ulm), encumberance, boosting the summon of wolfherders, etc., but honestly, it stands pretty well by itself. Stealthy communions and non-mindhuntable spies are underestimated, as well as kamikaze counts (hey, medallions of vengeance are only 4 fire gems. Why not?).