I have 8 bikes and each one has wheel sets I’ve built. I have Phil Wood hubs (3 sets), White Industry hubs (3 sets), Velocity (1 set) and Paul FHub/RHub (1 set). A few are 36 hole (the Phils) and the others are 32. They all use 2.3/1.8/2.0 triple butted spokes which are either DT Swiss or Pillar. I have used all kinds of different rims with the only thing they all have in common being that the rims are as light as possible. In my experience, rims are only important for holding the spokes. The triple butted spokes do the work and they make for very strong wheels indeed.
This bike, for example, has 32 hole Paul hubs, the DT Swiss spokes and Mavic XC-717 rims, which are about the lightest rims for mountain biking around. Yet it still is capable of carrying me and several pounds of camping gear down rough and tumble Colorado’s dirt roads
Untitled by
Stuart Black, on Flickr