My experience was that thugs get more kills on players that are easy kills, the ones that are unprepped, not flying and don't get out right away. Thugs will still get the occasional lucky kill on a good player, but the other guy has to screw up.

Binders, Poisoners and Trappers have some skills which can swing a fight and ruin anyone's day. With any of those, and especially a mix of two, I can think of ways to take down very strong chars that are unkillable to a thug.

That's the big difference to me. Thugs pick lots of low hanging fruit. The other builds are a harder to use but can kill stronger foes.