Actually, what I mean by focus on medium and long term is just what you said. If you have no plans or expectations to found a religion, then maxing the non-faith value of your pantheon may be the best short, medium and long term decision -- i.e., if there is no medium or long term religion benefit from your pantheon, short term wins -- take a food pantheon, or culture pantheon, or whatever, on the assumption your pantheon will go away within 50-100 turns as the AI spread their religions to your cities, or go ahead and take a faith pantheon, on the assumption that you will get boxed out of founding a religion, but which should allow you to bank away some faith until Industrial.