It has always felt strange to me to use Hoplites later in my campaigns, as I believe they were fazed out by the time of the thureos and thorax periods. Yes they make sense for a civil guard, or citizen soldier late in the game, but I don't use the more elite versions once I hit Thureos. I like to be able to transform these more elite, professional, veteran Hoplite units later on into Thureos units so I can retain their experience and campaign history. I do this by modding my own game files to accomplish this.
I haven't played v1.2.7 just yet so I am not familiar with the upgrade paths available now.