Yes, the Guard of the Citadel is a pretty weak ally, and served only as a "chump blocker" in a pure leadership deck when the Core set first came out.  The Gondor trait was not developed further until recently -- the new Heirs of Numenor box is all about Gondor, and this guy can find a place in a Gondor-themed deck nowadays.  I'm sure that theme will continue to be developed over the next several adventure packs.  But don't go out and byu Heirs of Numenor -- it's best described as "super fantastically hard" if you haven't built up your card base by buying the intervening adventure packs.  

It's not a subtle business model.  Later-released quests are generally much more challenging if you haven't been "keeping up" with your purchases.

@ SOGra:  I was making that same mistake during my first several games.  It made a huge difference, and thus made the game more manaeable when I played the step of engagment… correctly.

@Spleen:  Thanks for confirming my suspicions.  Based on your experience, and I'm assuming you have several expansion for the game, what percentage of "deck-building" cards would you say are generally useful?  That is to say, how many are considered for decks you build versus those that are automatically discarded due to being comparatively bad?