As Keith Bontrager so famously said "strong, light, cheap...pick 2". If you add in ease of service, you are still stuck with picking 2. You've already seemed to throw out "ease of service" which the Phil Wood excels at. If you don't have to service them, that's about as easy as it gets. That's a reason that I use Phils and White Industries hubs. I have hubs with nearly 20,000 year around commuting miles on them that haven't been touched since the day that the wheels were built around them. There's just no need. I also use the Phils because they are dead simple to work on if I ever need to. And, for touring, if I ever break a spoke, I can remove the rear cassette without having to lug around a lockring tool. To me, that's worth the cost of admission. YMMV.

The White Industry hubs aren't quite as easy to work on, but not too difficult nor do they need to be worked on any more then the Phils. They do come with titanium freehubs which makes them very light which, again, is worth the price of admission. The fact that both the Phils and the Whites are beautiful and made in the US is a bonus.

But if you want something that is strong and cheap, pick any hub from the Shimano catalog. There isn't that much difference between an Alivio and an XTR. All of the Shimano hubs are strong, some are cheaper. All will work for building a wheel and none are going to leave you stranded. All of them use cup and cone bearings which have to be serviced much more often than a cartridge bearing hub does.

That said, unless you are building wheels to have something special...like a Phil Wood hub or a wheel for a special application or something that you just can't get anywhere else..., it's more economical to purchase a machine built wheel. I understand the desire to build your own but why pay extra for the parts to build a wheel that you can just purchase?