My thoughts from trial and error over the years:
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"Make a person first" is correct. What's "useful" is so given to change from plot to plot and week to week, and is always so different on a MUSH than in a closed-loop tabletop campaign, that the main priority should definitely be coming up with a character you feel excited to play for their own sake. Recently, I made a character that was intended as useful (and he was), but who had "stuff I like" in place of a coherent personality, and after a while I was just bored and frustrated with playing him. I traded him in for someone less immediately useful but who had a personality that I invested more in, and she's been barrels of fun to play.
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"Be prepared to be at the back of the line" is also correct. Not everyone treats kinfolk/ghouls like second-class citizens, true, but I would say that's an exception to the rule (and again, something that maybe works better in closed campaigns than open-world MUSH stuff). In most situations, a ghoul or a kinfolk is going to be a secondary concern in ongoing plots. At worst, they're a walking blood bag/walking fertile womb. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
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App something you're going to be fine with playing as-is and building upon. I've run into more than one player who's been frustrated about their character because they conceptualized some badass super-wizard or something, and want to play that immediately, but can't access the badass super-wizard powers with just chargen XP. So whatever you make, make sure you're not going to end up resenting it for only being half of what you really want it to be.
