I just played with Elizabeth, which is both Philosophical and Financial, and just totally destroyed all the others in everything. Had a bad start, but built about 5 or 6 cottages in each city, and wham. I had a 10-15 Tech lead by the end. I had tanks before others even had infantry. 1 guy was very strong, stronger than me with all my units. But he just had like 50 artil. Anyways he was next to me, and I knew he would be a problem when he got to industrialism and went to war with him. Saladin, the guy, had all his troops set up in Baghdad, on my border. Hehe, the idiot. After my first wave of attack, I killed nearly 1/4 of his power. He, in the next turn, killed about 1/8 of mine. Not good enough. I got all my tanks and stuff to med up in my cities, and 3 turns later, Baghdad was tooken over. From there on, I just got some other civs to declare war on him, when wasn't a smart idea. They all wanted to get cities just as much as me -.-
Well I just owned that game so hard. On Prince level too. That was one of the hardest ownages I've committed. I didn't need to go to war with anyone for territroy, so I was lucky. My power sucked as hell in the beginning. I was way below. But once the Cavalry/Infantry came, I sky rocketed. In the end, I was number 1 in everything.
Anyways, in that game, I learned the power of the Great People Farm. Though mine really wasn't a farm, it was more of a Great People Wonders in the beginning. Then later on, had 6 specialists along with the wonders, addition to the National Epic and already Philsophical. I had 3 Golden Ages which rocked. Used a lot of my Great People for Super Specialists, and other times just for tech. Good game.
I'd say the Financial is better though. I only constructed so many Great People, and that was only in my capital. Financial + Colossus works out to be ownage, as I have found out in my past games. Hehe.