Just thought it'd be interesting to see what everyone else is using. Here's mine:
+50% growth (population)
-0.6 BC (Money)
-10 (Ground Combat)
-10 (Spying)
Unification
Subterranean
Large Home World
Lucky
I've used this race to beat 99% of scenarios.

I prefer the "Silicoids v1.1"
Dictatorship
Tolerant
Lithovore
Repulsive
-20% Ship Defense
-10% Ground Combat
I just changed the -50 in population growth (because this is one of the worst picks you can choose!) and added -20% Ship Defense and -10% Ground Combat. Research and production are suffering from the reduced population growth. It will take a longer time to colonize new planets and they will take longer to be useful. You are losing a lot of time in the first turns of the game. The reduced population growth eats up the whole advantage from being a tolerant lithovore. If your empire is running you don't have to care about this... But get it running is easier without reduced population growth.
Otherwise the Silicoid-Picks are a good decision. You can easily switch from research to production (if necessary) without caring about food or pollution. On every new planet I build a Marine Barrack (dictatorship...) and all available buildings with effect on moral. Abundant or poor planets with a minimum of 8 max. population become research-planets with nothing more additional than a Research Lab and a Supercomputer. Rich planets become fleet building planets with an Automated Factory, a Robo Miner Plant, a Star Base and Spaceport and Stock Exchange for a bigger income.

I tend to make research-heavy races, because it suits my play style.
Creative
Research +2
Espionage -10
Ground Combat -10
Dictatorship
Large home world
So long as you can survive early on (and you could use pre-warp to make it easier still), the research advantages will mean you can get better weapons, more money and more production before you need to commit to a war.

Currently, I'm trying many configurations, but one is always the same - I'm always playing as Humans.

Have you ever tried adding democracy to that? You'd have to take a heavy hit like repulsive or low-g homeworld to do it, but they have the +50% research rate. I'd be curious to see how it works.
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Just tried to make what I described. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, since creativity, democracy, and +2 research totals 21 points.

-Spying and Creative is a fairly bad combo. Until you get a lot of defending spies and a couple of +Spying techs, you might as well consider every other race you encounter Creative as well. It's even worse if they manage to steal your spying techs.

Yeah, and I put that in my notes. It is even worse with Democratic, since you will actually have a -20 total Spying. I wasn't trying to totally optimize the races though, as I noted at the bottom, since that would almost require Repulsive (or Low-G, which I hate nearly as much as Repulsive).
I did leave out Large homeworld though, not that it make a huge difference. Might as well use that last point.
I have played the above race without much trouble though. Sure, I get my techs stolen a lot at the beginning, but there is a strategy to avoid many of the problems. Just focus on one or two fields, and trade with the other races BEFORE they steal your tech. Since you are creative, you will have many techs to choose from the trade to them. This also keeps them happy with you.
Now, if you truly want to min/max a Creative race, this is how I would build it:
Uber Creative Race:
- Creative
- +2 Research
- Unification
- Repulsive
- -10 Ship Defense
- -10 Ground Combat
(unification will improve your spy defense, as well as improving worker production)
Or something like this:
Growth Creative Race:
- Creative
- Aquatic
- Subterranean
- Large Homeworld
- Repulsive
- -10 Ship Defense
- -10 Ground combat
(Play on an organic rich galaxy, and even Impossible will be child's play)
I just find these type of races zero challenge. The Creative+Repulsive combo is just too easy to abuse, imho. On Impossible, Repulsive isn't even THAT much of a negative, since most other races are already gunning for you out of the box; unless you have something to help with diplomacy, like telepathic or charismatic, it is almost (I know it is not impossible, hence the 'almost) a lost cause.

I just came up with a Growth/Creative race yesterday. It's an interesting one and quite easy to play.
- Dictatorship
- Population Growth: +100
- Ship Offense: -20
- Espionage: -10
- Low Gravity
- Subterranean
- Creative
Otherwise, here's a Technologist race I made a few days ago. The +50% bonus to research from government works well.
- Democracy
- Creative
- Low Gravity
I find Low-G races easier to play. They allow you 5 additional race picks and only need a Gravity Generator to offset the negative on a colony. I don't even notice the effects of their weakened ground combat strength when it comes to troop invasions.

I'm fairly certain that many munchkin races would use Repulsive + Low-G if those were -10 combined.

Yeah, the generally accepted min/max negative picks are Repulsive, - Ground Combat, and - Ship Defense, since those add up to the maximum -10 race picks. I don't take Repulsive, Low-G, or Creative, unless it is needed for a race concept (I tend to create races on a theme). I just find this makes the game more fun/challenging for me, of course other folks' mileage may vary.

Arcterrans (Balanced Industrial-Complex warriors)
-1 Research
Artifact world
+20 ship attack
+20 ship defense
+10 ground combat
+1 Industry
Dictatorship
^
I like these guys....except that -1 research really does come back to bite you later (blame the psilons...)
Keimi (Priestess-spy Race)
-10 spy roll
Telepathic
Creative
Low G
Dictatorship
^
worst race ever! yet i win games with these guys...
Skalar (Millitary-Research)
low-g
Warlord
Industry+1
Creative
Dictatorship
^
no comment
Ancients (Civilization)
unification
science +1
Creative
low-g
poor homeworld
-50% growth
Artifacts world
^
and yet another horrible species.... but I like them!
Sirens (The smooth-talking spies/diplomats/hero magnet)
Unification
Low Gravity
Charismatic
Telepathic
^
I like the heroes i get from charasmatic! shame though, most of them are spiritual leaders that cant speak to a unification gvt

My favorite race was inspired by Star Trek's Borg: Cybernetic, Telepathic, Unification, Repulsive, and I believe rounded out with -spying. It's an absolutely horrible race for newbies, what with being Repulsive, but it's quite effective at forcibly assimilating the entire galaxy once it gets started.

I'm not the only one then, hehe. I think I made the race the same way (sometimes replacing -Spying with Uncreative), naming the leader Locutus. This is one of the concept races I would play every once in a while that included Repulsive.
As far as it being tough on newbies, I am not so sure I agree, There is something comforting about knowing all the other races hate you. That way you don't have to worry about keeping their schizo political AI in line. Unification and Cybernetic together is a fairly forgiving combination, too.

I just played a repulsive race in MOO2 and at one point The GNN came out with a report that my daughter married a high ranking official or officer of the Gnolam race, Was quite amusing. I went to war with them right after that :)