What's wrong with the Hittites? They have their strong points. Expansionist is powerful on lower level pangaeas, commercial is ok, they have a UU that allows to trigger the GA at the best point of time (unlike for example, the Americans and Germans, which always need to trigger the GA by Wonders) and they have the perfect combination of starting techs: Alphabet & Pottery, for the ultra-fast slingshot.
I'd say, for fast space race games on lower difficulty levels, they could be as good as the Russians. (The Russians get 3 free techs and cheap libs/unis, while the Hittites are faster at Republic and get a more useful GA.)