Now, we all love Orlandu because the whole Demigod thing. But you get several other special chars over the course of the game. Which ones do you actually use?
I use Agrias, usually. Her skills are powerful, and have decent range, and cost no MP, and take no time to use. You get her toward the end of Chapter II, and her skills are quite useful at that point in the game. She's usually not still with me by the time I fight Jesus -- I mean, Altima, but I use her for a lot of major fights until I get someone better, like Orlandu. I've also been known to employ Mustadio because Seal Evil easily decommissions undeads effectively, and his Leg/Arm Aim are infinitely valuble, if used in the right situations.
Meliadoul, meh... I've used her once or twice, but I mostly like her sword.
Rafa and Malak are solid trash, in my book. I've seriously only tried using them a couple of times, but I was seriously disappointed, so I stopped wasting my time on them.
Beowulf is good, but by that point in the game, I had no room for him considering I had way more powerful generics, even with his cool special abilities.
Cloud was awful, in my opinion. You don't get him until way later, and he's level freaking 1. Of course, I mastered the Soldier job class so I could see his FF7 limit breaks, and they were cool and all, but I'd never bring Cloud into a battle because he'd actually help win the battle. There are so many other classes that I'd rather bring in than his.
I'm sure there are other special characters that I'm missing...