Never underestimate speed 1 and revolt!
I've used every god, including Artemis, except for Hera. :/ One of the most other popular gods are Hades and Zeus as starting gods, my starting god was Hades because I didn't like Hera's units.
I agree that lots of people like to use Zeus, but Hera's ability to give you all three resources or enhance your worker's production are immediately useful and are easy ways to use some of her favor if you are getting close to the limit. Zeus' easy use is to make chariots and that's pretty overrated in my opinion. Poseidon gives you wood which is nice and can make your harbor work faster. Athena makes your barracks work faster and is can throw a few men into a new city so you can start taking over farming villages right away (this is the one place where Zeus' chariots make sense as well) but those are both later in the game. Hades can throw you silver which is good and while his myth units are strong they require a lot of resources and favor to get not to mention higher level temples (not as high as Poseidon's level 22 for Hydra - ouch). Which brings us all the way back to Hera. If you don't like her units, you must be crazy. The Harpy can be had for 1600 wood, 400 rock, 1360 silver, and 130 favor and Medusa is 1500 wood, 3800 rock, 2200 silver, and 210 favor. The only cheaper units are from Athena which are quite a bit weaker. Harpy is better than Cerberus and Medusa gives Erinys a run for her money offensively but costs much less. Cerberus and Erinys are much stronger defensively, so if you are looking for good defense, then Hades might be your guy, but by the time you can even start making a myth army, Hera's already beat you to the punch in a big way.
My personal feeling is everyone recognizes Hera's benefits early in the game, but I think she can hold her own all the way through.
