To Leitis or not to Leitis?

I've really enjoyed playing as the Lithuanians recently. The relic minigame adds a fun dimension to games, their food bonus can smooth out any kinks in Dark Age or kickstart a drush, and best of all Leitis are a beautiful unit to look at when running round the field (the most important factor).

Speaking of Leitis, I'm curious to hear what everyone's decision making is when deciding whether to focus on the Knight line or Leitis. Against someone like the Franks (which, let's face it is 90% of game at the moment) Leitis feel like a superb option (providing you have at least a couple of castles). Facing archer heavy civs, Paladin is clearly a better choice though on account of their superior PA, especially post Leitis nerf.

What about when facing large numbers of halbs, or eagles, or champions? Is the cost effectiveness of the Leitis enough to negate it's relatively weaker stats pound for pound vs the Paladin, or does the ability to mass knight numbers relegate the Leitis to more of a specific counter to heavily armoured units?