Boron,
I didn't know sacrifice precluded temple check, so my experience ain"t that good !
However sacrifice leads to 1 check PER SLAVE, so it's still more effective (and simpler mm-wise!) to use it with Abysia than Mictlan...
As per the Abysian debate : Abysia rocks in early game, their unit are clearly superior to all except Jotuns IMHO. Plus the fact that you can throw fire all around them without any bad effect (they're also immune to Flame Arrows, my Last Marignon opponent still reminds this !
)
The sacred LW isn't much useful, and Bless strategies aren't worth their cost with them I think.
They are bloody devil summonners as much as Mictlan also, but without all the crap base Mictlan troops
Their problems is that all their unit are bloody expensive too, their mages are capitol only, and they suck at research (due to high cost, limited production and need for hunters). Mictlan OTOH doesn't have those...
BoH theme is IMHO much better at bloodhunting and research (considering however they can't have above Magic 0 they're just "correct", not "good"). The sacred GP *is* quite correct however and BoH can use effectively a Bless strategy.
I agree with you that they're less good at summoning due to their lower grade mages, they need pretender support to start off.