I skipped playing with huts after one year of Civ 4 and never turned back. It is random, distorted and gives you a false sense of security. You will not learn how to manage your commerce early on, because you almost always pop up some 50 gold.
Also, on EMP and above, AI runs around with 2 scouts each and grabs most of the huts before you. You cannot imagine what they pop up sometimes. Isabella once switched into Hered. Rule at Turn 22, which means she had beelined Priesthood and got Monarchy from a hut. Do you want this to happen?
For me, running around like an idiot in the hope to grab a nice technology puts a 1. lot of stress (will I be the first?), 2. incites me to build scouts/warriors first (often without any payback), 3. neglects fogbusting (because you run away too far), 4. makes a kill more likely (because you run into the jungle, do not recover, do not fortify) and 5. makes my scouting even more unconscious (because I focus only on huts instead of evaluating a next city site.) So after all, I have revealed useless parts of the maps and sometimes don't even know my surrounding towards a particular cardinal point....