I understand why, but Taki really should have been added to the team. He represented so much: Japanese male who had the total opposite personality from Sunfire, was one of the rare handicap-able heroes and had a versatile power that I could have seen Cable dying to manipulate, I mean use. But there was no way Liefeld could handle that kind of creativity.
As for Rusty I liked him well enough as a kid. In fact I kinda had a crush on him. But he really didn't fit in with the NM. What I really hated was how the NM and X-Factor forgot about them after they were captured by Freedom Force. Like out of sight out of mind.