Questions about the primaries

I have a few questions about the mastermind primaries. First, a little background. I like playing masterminds a lot, but until last weekend, never got one past 23. Before the build would mature, I would give up on the mastermind because it felt weak. So x2XP Weekend comes, and I reach 50 with my Thugs/Storm character. At 48-ish, I stopped with the AE Boss teams and went the rest of the way teaming with a friend in RWZ. We did the missions at level 5 difficulty. Now that I was actually up against something normal, I had a fantastic time with my mastermind. The build had matured, my pets were fully upgraded, and my enemies died quickly.

That said, I want to play something just as fun and similar to that character. The things I liked were the damage (pets and lightning storm), survivability (Steamy Mist, Hurricane, Thunder Clap, sometimes Gale and Tornado), and the minor bit of healing. The fact that 4 of my pets (darn arsonist and bruiser) were ranged and out of the way of fatal melee blows helped tremendously.

Now I want to try a new mastermind that I will level up normally (now that I have hope that things won't always be so dull). I'm not sure what combo to choose though. Also, I would like to note that each character I start receives no financial help from my other characters, which means I am in basic IO's or TO/DO/SO's till 30-ish, maybe longer (my 50 MM is in basic IO's and SO's, so no set bonuses at all).

As for secondaries, I like active ones like storm and dark miasma. Trick arrow looks like a pale shadow of its controller and defender self, and it's a late bloomer, so I'm not too into that. Pain and FF sound rather boring to me. I don't like traps much at all. As for poison, I like it, but it means buying extra accuracies for powers that have the same abilities as autohit powers of other sets, but have a chance to miss and are only single target.

The general questions that apply to each of these is: Are my observations correct? What are your thoughts and input?

Thugs- I would prefer not to play the same primary twice.

Mercenaries- I don't care for the first tier at all. They're nowhere near as cool as malta or crey. Spec Ops and Commando are fine, though. That aside, I like that they do ranged damage, but I dislike the lower damage and knockback (from the commando). Plus, since I start of my characters and play them with only their own money, I can never seem to afford the achilles' heel proc, and especially not lady grey's proc, when I need them most.

Necromancy- It looks like a lot of fun, but it worries me. 1) 5 out of 6 pets are melee. They have resistances, but more exotic ones instead of the lethal/smashing I need more. As I saw with my arsonist, and even bruiser to a degree, melee attacks from a +2 enemy will destroy them in 2-3, sometimes 1, hits. If I play this set, I'll likely combine it with Dark Miasma. Will this be enough to keep my melee'ers from getting squashed often? 2) With the lich being mostly a control and debuff style pet, do the zombies and grave knights make up for this lack of damage in the third tier?

Ninjas- They have defense, but no resistance (cept for the oni). So, in my eyes, it would be like having melee thugs. Also, I don't care too much for the style of the first two tiers. I love the control from the Oni, but the kicking and slashing from the first two just seem a bit dull.

Robotics- I've heard many good things about this set. When I've tried it (I have a level 20 Robotics MM) though, they felt really sluggish. Combat went "Bzzt...long pause...Bzzt...long pause". Does combat become interesting? I know the assault bot is powerful (does his flamethrower really have a 6ish second animation time?). The secondaries that have synergy, traps and FF, don't really interest me much, which discourages me from playing this. Also, in my time at the AE building, I barely saw anything other than bots and thugs, which is kind of a bummer.

Those are my observations and questions. I also ask that if you have a level 50 version of one of these sets (particularly mercs or zombies), that you post a link to it.

Sorry for the length, but I am eager for input. Thanks.

Necro/dark may be a very good option. Its primary/secondary stack very well for some amazing lockdown and debuffing power, a handy heal in you TG and T9 secondary pet. and you can (if you have the money) get 4 pet aura IOs that can slot into soul extraction and add to the survivability of your pets quite a healthy deal, but it's be no means needed.
Positives:
-Great lockdown and debuffs, thus plenty survivable
-Active enough to suit your needs
-Pets all work well with your secondary
-Zombies and GK really do make up for that lack of damage in Lich.
-Pick up TP friend, not only for its already present convenience, but to stealth in and Port your fluffy into the mob to soak up a bit of the alpha and lay down some great debuffs.

Negatives:
-Your heal is a PBAoE and a small radius so your melee henchmen may not all get hit with the green numbers when needed, but your T9 Fluffy has a normal Radius twighlight grasp that does help a good deal.
-Melee pets can be hard to manage, and GK may cycle ranged attacks more often than you want. With your lockdown/debuffing power you should have some leeway time to micro manage them though.

I've got a 48 Necro/Dark MM that I've had a blast playing. like any set it has its ups and downs, but overall very enjoyable IMO. My personal observations:

Good - /Dark, Lich, and Dark Servant heals. Love to raise a spirit from one of my dead henchmen. Crazy ToHit Debuffs, slows, holds, fears all around. The whole powerset plays like a Controller with massive DoTs.

Bad - Having to constantly force GKs into melee, where they can really dish out some nasty crit damage. Also, fire + zombie = dead MM.

The most difficult time I had playing during the life of my toon was between 12 and 18, if I remember correctly. But after that, it was pretty smooth sailing, and I've never had any real difficulty since then. Respec'd once to drop Dark Blast (took the guides' advice about not getting Black Hole thankfully) and one other time to replace Fitness>Health with GW Patron power, but that's about it.

Overall, very survivable and a great choice, but that's my .02

I got a 50 necro/dark so i can tell you that this combo is pretty strong and its damn fun to play.

From how I read you like to play, I'd say Bots/dark. Though they do feel a little slow until you get all of them, they are a lot of fun. Once you get them all and both buffs, they become killing machines (literally too :P). The pets will stay at range for the most part, so you don't have them dying to AoE all that often (The assault bot sometimes likes to run up and smack people, but he doesn't take too much damage being your boss pet). They do a ton of damage later on, and sitting there watching the sea of orange numbers in a pack of mobs is always fun :P Dark, as you mentioned, is quite active. And the extra pet just adds to the fun. I haven't found myself able to play any other secondary for MMs.

You mentioned that all you really saw was bots and thugs, this is probably because these are (I believe) the two top for AoE and well, from my experience, both very fun. In the end, just play what you find the most entertaining. Test out what people are recommending and see which suits you better.

I can't say anything about necro. I can't get around the minions hopping around like rabbits.
Mercs are a bit weird. I've heard a lot of mixed things about them. Some people say they love it, and others say it doesn't do enough damage. I haven't played one myself past like 12 so I can't really say.
Ninjas I think will be the next MM I level. They seem more for PvP and AVs because of the def debuffs. One of the MMs in my sg runs Ninja/Dark and loves it, so might be worth a try.

Edit: Forgot to mention, don't forget about Demons coming out with Going Rogue. Hoping they will be interesting

Necro/Dark is probably one of our strongest Mastermind combos available. ONE of them mind you.

If you're looking to slaughter mobs but lack in large fights (such as AVs/Heroes/Elite Bosses/Monsters/Giant Monsters) go with Thugs/Pain Domination. That combo will blow through mobs quite easily...but since you enjoy using only the money the character itself can earn you may want to avoid this one as it takes some slotting for it to evolve.

Another good non-set required combo would be Robotics/Traps. All around good, although the Single Target damage will be lack luster at best. Excellent AoE, great Debuffs, fun with traps and set ups, and if you use the environment just right nothing will be able to bring you down.

Now here is a rather exotic combination of Mercenaries/Storm Summoning. Supposedly very powerful and down right awesome. Hurricane will be sure to keep enemies away from melee while massively debuffing them with some rather painful -ToHit and -Range. Freezing Rain is an extremely strong debuff that Masterminds have available to them from the Storm Summoning set that will neuter most enemies.

Last but not least there's Ninjas/Force Fields. Your basic non-heavy damage combination. Good defense, decent buffs, nice control for the most part.

Whichever you choose you won't be disappointed! (Unless you try Ninjas/Poison).