I've won on emperor with Mao, Saladin and Hatshhsepstpsput (playing immortal now). Here's what i think about those "other" traits:
Spiritual can be pretty good, especially if it comes with mysticism. Both the trait and the early religion allows you to manage diplomacy more efficiently. In the end thats more tech trading partners and wars between the AIs, both of which i find very helpful on higher diff levels.
Philosophical can also be nice. It gives you those first few great persons so much earlier, which can be game-breaking if you use them to get a big tech (philosophy, civil service, machinery, etc.), kind of like the oracle. That can help your tech trading a lot, and allow you to bribe a bunch of AIs into war. It can also allow you to have some kind of big advantage for a while. If for example you use a great prophet to get civil service and/or a great engineer to get machinery, you can have macemen a lot earlier and therefore kick some serious ass. Or get caste system and pop a quick great merchant to get you out of a maintenance hole after a great early rush that got you a lot of land/cities but a 10% science rate. Etc...
I also like creative for the ability to block off land, but you can't always do that so its a gamble. Typically on higher levels you wanna rush some neighbour early but can't keep all the cities because of the killer maintenance costs. Claiming lots of land is very important on emperor+, and not having to settle all over it early on or claiming it by force later is the most efficient way to do it imo. Creative also helps a lot with those crazy barbs, allowing you to use that much more units against some AI.
I dont find aggressive that much useful even for an all-out war game. The cheap barracks are nice, especially early on, but post-classical I dont care much about the difference in cost. Combat I is useful, but imo the promotions made available by combat II and III arent great enough for me not to pick another trait. With non-aggressive leader you're only 1 xp away from combat I + whatever, and thats only pre-theocracy... and who gives a /$%/%/ about cheap drydocks?
I won't even talk about industrious... thats for guys who like to play on settler, grab every single wonder, and marvel at their cute little empire till 3000AD. No seriously its not that bad, but for most strats its the worse imo on emperor+.
