Personally, I get rather bored with the muster armies, take cities strategy which is one reason I prefer the short campaigns which have more focussed goals.

Thats always been true even with STW and I've always sought to find more imaginative solutions. I think its actually one of the weaknesses of the TW series that for the most part that strategy continues to be the easiest way to win. In MTW2 the Pope does add a slight speed bump in the process but as people have pointed out he is little more than a hinderance in the long term.