Does anyone use the governors for ship building etc...

[Emperor's Child]

About the only time I've run the AI is when evaluating a race's AI.

If you get to a point where it is "safe" enough to run your empire using the AI (ie: you are big enough it can't hurt you much), you are probably at the point where you are coasting to a win anyhow. I can see using this to automate portions of large empires if the game is undecided but well advanced, but I've usually clearly had the upper hand after defeating only one or two AI empires. IMHO, once you get to a certain point there is not much point in continuing...