D'karr
Adventurer
Just to bring another sort of minion rule into the discussion, what do people feel about the Mob template that was introduced in the DMG II? Essentially, you take a large group of mooks, turn them into one monster and they all die when they run out of that pooled hit points.
Is that a better way of dealing with mooks?
The issue with mobs is that they are much more dangerous than a single minion or even a group of minions. If you are surrounded by minions, not all of them are going to hit everytime they attack. So damage can still be minimal.
With some of the mobs the average damage can quickly escalate, they auto-hit and it takes a lot longer to take them out than a group of minions. So it is more difficult and challenging than fighting mooks.
Even though both minions and mobs are affected similarly by Area Effects, you can't effectively take out a mob without them. Which is one of the reasons minions can be more satisfying for melee combatants.
I think they are both good tools and I've used them both, for different purposes.