For a warrior type I have found that the Companions are about the best. House carls are good too.

There is a way to get your followers to level with you on consoles. Look up Wabbajack.

For Dead thralls, Bandit Chiefs make a good choice for melee. Although, Conjurers are good because they summon, too! My favorite DT is Ulfrics right hand guy. Galmor Stone-Fist or something like that. He doesn't moan! And he still uses his NPC lines in combat.

Edit: also remember to smith-up your follower's or DT's armor!

Not Barbas. Damn mutt. barks all the time, pushes you about when you stop, continually generates the "detected" eye when you are sneaking.

Much much worse than Meeko. But Barbas is effectively unkillable, so that is the only positive.

My Dremora Lords wrecks Volkihar Vampires. And I am talking about Dremora Lords, not the Sanquine Rose's Dremoras.

Another thing about Dead Thralls is they are annoying and quite creepy... Dremoras are awesome and say some of my favorite quotes in Skyrim.

I have no idea how a summoned Dremora with 345 health is killing, 1v1, a Volkihar Vampire with 823 health. I don't think you're comparing apples to apples here.

EDIT: Tomorrow I will test this, 10 trials, 1 on 1. I will report back with results. My gut says the Volkihar Vampire wins all 10 times.

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM7T77iqkjs

Dremora Lords have low health but their damage is quite powerful specially with that one perk. I've seen my Two Dremora Lords slaughter a Volkihar Vampire within 5-8 seconds but he was using Fire Spells and not Frost thus allowing them to get close to the Vampire easily. I still prefer Dremoras over Dread Thrall. I've always been a fan of Dremoras.

I also prefer Dremora's quotes over Zombie Quotes... The Zombies are all like "Must... Die..." And Dremoras are like; "I will feast on your heart!" Which Quote will strike fear into you if someone said them to you in real life?