wow, thanks for the thoughtful replies everyone!
HOW THE HECK DID I FORGET URCHIN??? think it was late at night when i made that post but still. i think i've had maybe 1 or 2 games so far where you could safely ignore that card. definitely makes an impact much more often than, say, forge or altar...and it's not like those are chopped liver obv. urchin *has* to be top 50 at least. BTW, is it just me or are $3 cards the most OP group relative to their cost?
pillage & native village were also ones i wanted to ask about. i just figured i was really bad with native village and i almost certainly am, but it's just never screamed "top 50" to me. there are a good number of topdeck-sorting cards, yes, but you don't always want those (helloooooooo, spy!). and without that, i'm always scared to buy them at all. storing away the one mountebank in your deck: not good times.
pillage...i dunno, it just seems like the attack is most likely to mean something at the beginning or end of the game. getting pillage as your first $5 just feels like you're giving up way too much most of the time, and at the end with a deck full of green...takes a while to get the pillage in your hand, and you have a good chance of wasting it on a junk hand. taking away the gold your opponent needed for the last province is sweet, but i'd rather just pick up a duchy at that point.
thank you again!