In order to provide you with a more common and reliable sample of how the pantheon works, I can play a few starts with random civs, always choose Festivals and post the number of luxuries I control on turns, say, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100. I'll play all the games as I'd usually play with festivals and I'll report this all as soon as I have played 10 games like these (unless it turns out to take too much time).
From experiece I can say by turn 50 you'll get 3-4 luxuries. Of course if you have that pantheon you'll try to maximize it, but let's face - for any other you're not going to go for making ally of mercantale CS or trading resources, as you're usually better off trading it for GPT (this is a matter of personal preference though).
I chose the pantheons I compared Festivals to because they provide culture and/or gold and therefore they are easy to compare to Festivals. Now that I think of it, I could have included Spirit of the Desert in the comparison (which is a pantheon I actually consider OP, although not even nearly to the extent of festivals). Of the pantheons I used in the comparison, I can't imagine any other outscaling festivals in a reasonable time except commerce (which doesn't provide culture).
I can agree here pantheons are far from being equal. There are plenty of useless one:
- Beauty got nerfed so badly I don't even look at it (you get the same yields from whole pantheon as from ONE improved resource with god of sky and star!! it' ridiculous);
- craftsmen is bad, as before you get specialist slots in other cities, religions may be decided already;
- god of sea requires tech and then hammers investment - not worth it unless you're Polynesia;
- fertility is simply useless - max you'll get is 2faith/2food in city - must worst possible output out of all panteons;
- protection - I would add 1g so upkeep of walls/barracks would be easier;
- purity would be better if not for lakes issues with tiles grabbing by cities and fact that marshes are getting chopped over time;
- renewal is a bit like above, sometimes you have to chop your yields generator to get luxury or resource;
- hunt is ok, but compare it to god of stars and sky - you'll get similar number of tiles to work with that pantheon and half of yields. Kinda silly;
When I start I only consider:
- god of star and sky - but it's not OP, you're crippled with tundra, it kinda balances it;
- spirit of the desert - 6/2/2 on improved flood plains wheat is too good, you can basically grow like mad with it;
- god of commerce - wonderful synergy with wide progress;
- god of war - early warmongering;
- ancestor/all creation - if above fails;
Ill check festivals next time maybe, but it seems to fit mostly tradition tall empire. Sim-city type of game, which I hate.