Problem with Tradition and early NC?

I think this ties in with the thread on building scouts first. I agree with the replies on getting 2/3 cities before NC, and for me having early scouts:

1. allows fast scoping of the available sites (plus you quickly know who and where the nearest AIs are)
2. allows you to block (or even DOW and steal) AI settlers

(plus the obvious ruins finding.)

It's hardly foolproof but I just find it the only viable early strategy unless I'm playing a mainly water map.

Scouts also find city-states, which gives you gold, and more gold if you find them first. Faith as well, meeting a religious CS first is kind of a big deal. In the end scouts are just too valuable not to build.

Well tradition and the NC early rush does give out some decent science with tradition but I don't like to use scouts as much as I like to use scouts with military caste social policy in honor. If you put a scout in every city you get a happiness and 2 culture points per turn. This really is worth it because scouts are built so quick in 1 or 2 turns by the time cities are more developed than their beginning starts that have very little production usually.