In my group we have a guy who plays solely story oriented characters and will even refuse to make a character "optomized" at times. Other times, in more difficult campaigns or with more difficult builds (a barbarian who didn't wear armor and had a 9 int) he will optomize to make up for weaknesses.

My characters focus on a story concept, then I try to create the best possible way to represent that concept. I generally focus on one or two aspects and try to max those out. These aspects are based on the character, not what I feel will be useful in a game. I have one character which I "power gamed" because I created him to be more powerful than normal.