I'm SO happy to see this thread. In the process of commuterizing an old Marin and have been curious what everyone is riding and for what purpose. I'll be mostly on pavement or hardpack. I may be in a minority but outside of Paselas I haven't seen a lot of narrower gumwall tires at the 26" size.
Currently I'm on very cheap Kenda Kwests at 1.5 width. Working fine in the interim but the roll resistance is pretty crummy.