I'm going to stop after this one post, but I think

[Evilhomer]

Actually I think most people agreed that:

a) The monkey nations have really bad pd (the giants and manchaka being good competion for the last place in the pd issue)

b) The monkey nations are at best average, but probably below average. This is in my opinion not so much due to having bad pd (plays a small part of course) but mostly due to bad troops (elephants being the exception).

Most of the monkey nation are rather bad especially in early and mid game (so not optional in a duel, though I do think MA ulm is in for a bit of trouble). They do however start to shine if you can use diplomacy to make it to the later part of the game. Astral nations are almost brokenly good in late game, especially if they have access to clam mages.