I think humanism is great, but I'm more a fan of the "religious enlightenment" and "punitive expedition" route. After all, rebels are just mercenary deaths, and mercenaries are just money. I think I remember playing with it once, got events converting provinces to random heretics, and then never took it again.
I used to like offensive, but then forced march got moved, so it got much worse in my opinion (and now that siege ability is so much less important now, I don't think there's any reason to take it anymore). Defensive gets that stupid OP morale event on top of its existing bonus (15% + 15% morale?!), making up for the other lackluster ideas.
Anyway, just concluded my cleanest annihilation of the Ottomans yet, in 1560 as glorious Montferrat (the OPM vassal of Savoy added in CS). Occupied until they bankrupted, took most of Bulgaria and Karaman's cores, and then broke truce a day later after releasing them. This is one of the reasons why diplomatic ideas are so amazing, incidentally. -3 stab for a truce break really isn't that bad, and in both wars I was able to demand 20% more land than I normally would be able to (not to mention the cheaper war exhaustion reduction paying for itself when call for pizza reared its ugly head).