The great characters of CIV7 are of little use (?)

I have a question for you all: Do you use Great People as a significant part of your strategy in CIV7? Could it be that civilizations with Great People are at a disadvantage compared to civilizations with more "everyday" civilian units? In CIV6, Great People were everything; in CIV7, it's different, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I don't know how your games have gone, but I, for one, haven't really built Great People when I play civilizations that can. I prefer to spend my production and gold on other things. I've only built one a couple of times when I had a large lead in the game and was simply waiting for the end of the Age. However, I find it more useful to build army commanders, wonders, or something else that will be useful for me in the next Age.

The problem I have with great characters is their randomness since I can't guarantee that the great character that will help me, for example, build a wonder is going to come out... Maybe great characters should come out automatically after a few turns, as long as you have built your unique neighborhood or at least, that it is possible to know what the effects of the great character you are about to build are to know if it is worth it or not... I think this request is not too crazy since in CIV6 we could see which character we would get.