Wow! The best thing I can say about 'mute is that its an ok pickup on t3/t4 when you miss your familiar buy.
I'd be very interested to see your list of 12 cards with lesser utility.
Transmute is great later on in Familiar games, it can combo with Vineyards, sometimes if there are other curse-givers and a neat engine to build it can be useful, or with Dukes or other Alchemy-heavy setups... there are ways to make it work.
Anyway, the cards I'd consider worse than Transmute (mind you, this is not counting Dark Ages, which I've barely played- and also keep in mind that DA might boost the Mute a bit too, with stuff like Ruins -> Duchy for instance):
Thief
Scout
Counting House
Adventurer
Pirate Ship
Talisman
Explorer
Saboteur
Cache
Treasure Map
Stash
...Okay, I guess that's only eleven. You could arguably throw Mandarin or PStone in for 12, though they're probably a tiny bit better.
Coming to this party super late.
Funny that just today I played a Transmute game:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/09/game-20121009-173854-b71c3505.htmlA piledrive of Transmute, Herbalists, and Vineyards.
That said, it's near the bottom of my list of bad cards:
From worst on up:
Adventurer
Thief
Scout
Saboteur
Transmute
These others are in a different class:
Counting House
Pirate Ship
Talisman
Explorer
Cache
Treasure Map
Stash
I've learned to like CH a lot in the right setting. Against MB it's great. With Warehouse it's a lot of fun. The ability to pull out a province out of your hat in some games is very very useful.
Pirate Ship is one of the most under-rated cards. It's bad, but no where near as bad as people think. If there isn't alt-money on the board and there's a way to play more than one per turn, it can shit someone down - even in two-player.
Talisman has so many uses I can't believe it's listed here. From picking up cheap engine components, to driving down piles and going Gardens. It's a great card on many boards.
Explorer is marginal at best, but it can be great in alt-VP games. It's effectively +$2, gain a silver. (Or +$3 gain a gold with province in hand). Much better than people give it credit for.
Cache is only good in specific conditions - usually when you don't mind copper at all - Trader, Apothecary, Gardens, heavy cursing. But in those situations it can be better than Gold.
Stash is just a silver that lets you stack money. The stacking can often get you a guaranteed province every shuffle - which can matter in the end game. Otherwise there are times when you just want a silver for $5 and this is better.
Treasure Map I don't like at all. But I don't think it's that weak. If you can trash or cycle it's a pretty powerful card. Otherwise it's just all about random luck - which is why I don't like it (rather than the fact it's weak)
Ed