Are the Royals worth it?

[TotalNewbie]

I've been trying out the game for a while and after reading a lot of Posts on this form I have found lots of summons are great. The devils are great with the high base protection, good combat stats, and fine resistances. The undead are great with 0 encumberance and excellent resistances. However I find that the royals are lacking. None of the royals have feet so you can't give them boots of quickness or boots of flying. A Super Combatant who can not fly or who does have quickness does not seem quite as super to me.

Am I thinking the wrong way about this? Is there something about the royals that makes them worth 50 gems?

I've also looked at Zen's mod, which seems excellent, and he makes some improvements to the royals but even there they seem somewhat lacking considering their scarcity.