Yes, but any non-Protective civ could take out pillagers just as easily. The only difference between Protective and non-Protective defense is that Protective has better city defenders. BobDole was pointing out that this difference does not matter because having better city defenders is not much of an advantage.
I hope this doesn't turn into another debate about Protective's strength...
Re: the OP, when evaluating a civ, I think: Traits > UU > starting techs > UB. Traits are most important, but a strong UU can make up for weaker traits. <snip>
Uh, you say that traits are the most important for your evaluation and then you present a list based on civilizations instead of leaders? If you think that a civ with multiple leaders is always in the same tier regardless of its particular leader, that would suggest that traits don't come into your evaluation at all.