Maybe it's just me but I don't find the ransom gold that useful when I'm a King or Emperor, you start getting more gold then you really need at that point. I don't like to revoke their titles either because you can only remove their main one so if it's a Duke, you still have a count that hates you for revoking his Duchy. I wish you could just revoke ALL their titles without upsetting your other vassals. Why is it they don't care if I remove one title but suddenly get upset if I revoke a second one? I should be able to completely strip a traitor of all their titles without penalty (except for the person who I took them from hating me of course), it's no more than they deserve.
It helps when you have a angry vassals of a different culture and you want to replace them with same culture vassals en mass. I like the strong claims and an ill-timed independence ultimatum can screw up your game even if you are able to win them back later on.
