Ooh, ooh, new info on patch page!

[Tifone]

AFAIK people do think they are. They have, as you said, nice stats, and are very self buffable and fully equippable.
But they are middle game SCs... very expensive and you can't use them early without researching buffs and better weapons (armor!) for them - unlike Jarls i.e., they don't have an inbuild aura that kills people of whatever.
In the early game, you just get a big, expensive and encumbered guy with a big knife to hit one enemy a turn while getting swarmed.