You may have already had a lot of suggestions, or maybe the ideas bunny has come visiting with that 'perfect suggestion'. But, I like the idea of a mid-game goody hut as it introduces a random element, that (apart from battle odds) doesn't really feature after the early game. I'd quite like to see them as reusable goody huts that are dicey to use, a la Temple of Doom. Entering a temple, your intredpid unit could:
Translate Ancient Scrolls of Wisdom = Free tech (very rare)
Unearth Mystical artefacts = Free magic promotion (rarish)
Discover Treasure = Small Gold lump sum (common)
Disturb the temple guardians = 1-5 low level undead barb units pop out (common)
Fall into a booby trap = Bye bye explorer (rarish)
Anger the gods = Unleash 1 high level nasty barb unit (very rare)
Making them reusable opens up the possibility of them being overpowered, but this could be countered by:
-making the negative possibilities likely enough for it to be risky
-cheap, inexperienced units give worse results, expensive high level units give better results, but there is still a risk of losing a valuable unit
-temples must be in your cultural borders in order to be explored
-if they are still overpowered they could 'fall into ruins' after a random number of explores
Then again, what do I know, only been playing it for a week!
Kael, thanks for replying to my first dumb question so quickly, more to follow, I'm sure.