Getting back to Harvest, here's a game where I'm convinced that Harvest was a way better choice than Gold, because there are cards that care about actions: Throne Room and Herald, so the coin maximum of 1 Harvest increases significantly, comparing to Gold, and it isn't a stop card anymore.
Another good example where you want to prefer Harvest to Gold are Minstrel engines, maybe also Draw-to-X strategies.
Well, for starters, a single game, let alone a game won by 4 Provinces probably isn't the best indicator of any card's quality. But let's go for it.
Harvest gets you...
$2 on T12
$2 again on T12, leaving you with $7
$4 on T13
$3 on T14
$4 on T14
$4 on T15, but Gold would have given you $4 as well since you played Bank
$4 again on T15, but again, Gold would have given you $4 as well since you played Bank
$3 on T16
$3 on T17
$4 on T17
$3 on T18
$3 again on T18
To review, you get an average of just over $3... but on only three occasions do you get more than Gold would give you, and on two you get less. I'm not buying that it's terribly useful to you.
Anyway, the problem with Harvest is that for it to be better than Gold, you need two things to be true:
1. Its terminal-ness doesn't matter.
2. It will average more than $3 per play.
2a. Your deck has high card variety.
2b. Your deck has cards in it when you play Harvest.
2b directly conflicts with both 1 and 2a. For 1, decks with a surplus of +Action are usually either full-deck-drawers or poorly built. For 2a, this usually means trashing your start cards, which lends itself to very short decks, which can easily leave you without enough cards in the deck to get much out of Harvest.
Of course, good deck management is your friend... but when you're drawing your deck and Harvest shows up right near the bottom, you're just out of luck.