All PBEM's are (sooner or later) decided by war, that is absolutely correct. But
when the wars will happen is the what really decides for a civ their victory or defeat. The point that I have been (and still am) trying to stress is that
technology is often (not always, but commonly enough) the key to a military victory. Putting a new unit to use before anyone else has the technology required to even build it creates a
major advantage, and one that can easily be used to fuel a successful campaign if it is played out right. Thus, technology and military should be very closely linked if we want to have a shot at winning this thing. A massive army of obsolete units won't hold up against a smaller army of advanced units; and likewise a great lead in technology won't be of much use if we don't put it to use by building plenty of units. Military and technology have to be handled together for a truly successful campaign to be fought.
So, with that in mind, I'm pushing for us to think a little bit outside the box of "spamming Axemen", and actually prepare for our future by considering some beneficial projects. As most of you know, I am very keen on us obtaining the Great Library. This wonder, I feel, would greatly enhance our research situation, and it is especially nice since we are also Philosophical, and have access to Marble to greatly speed production.
As for attack speed, you're right that there's a lot of ground between us and the teams that we currently know of. Any attack is going to take a long time to reach us (and for us to reach them) by land, and an invasion by sea would be extremely costly on resources (and thus probably unlikely and out of the question). Roads will be the key, I'd imagine. We'll need to make sure we have a good network of our own, and possibly found some cities just for the purpose of extending our reach through our road network later on.
About fighting in our own lands, we want to avoid that situation if at all possible. If we're fighting in our own lands then chances are we're already close to defeat. Ideally we want to keep the enemies
out of our borders or near our cities during wartime, since if our territory starts getting badly pillaged then it's pretty much all over anyway. Being the aggressor ourselves would of course be the best situation, but I don't think we're anywhere near ready enough for that in the short term future. (As for the long term though, it's something we might want to keep in mind.)
Alliances will also be important. We need to decide who our friends are (if any), and how much we trust them. 2 civs will usually beat 1, just as 3 will often beat 2. We want to be on the high side of those numbers if at all possible. Fighting two enemies at once will do nothing whatsoever to increase our odds of survival.
Great Scientists and Great Engineers are the most useful Great Leaders in my personal experience. (A couple of Great Prophets are also nice for the early game too.) So if we can try to concentrate on those that'd probably be the most sensible thing to do.
Spiritual is indeed a nice trait... one of the most useful in the multiplayer environment, in my personal experience. For the most part though, we shouldn't be focussing our research around civics, as that isn't really a smart tech plan. (With the occasional exception, eg Bureaucracy or Vassalage are often good to get.)
Please let me stress once again that we have
no chance at the Pyramids. Forget them. We don't have stone, and we don't have decent production. It's the most expensive wonder in the early game. There's just no possibility of us getting that one; it'd be wasted hammers.
Those are my thoughts for now... I might remember some more stuff later.