Play a build you enjoy through Hell, because by Inferno, a lot of builds become rendered too weak -- either they get killed too easily or dps too slowly (cause you spend much more time kiting). Disintegrate is awesome fun and I used it all the time for most of NM and Hell, but Arcane Orb soon replaced it simply because it's much more suitable for kiting than a channelled spell.
I pretty much alternate between the two cookie cutter builds, but you can still differentiate it a bit with choice of runes and passives. The only must-haves seem to be:
Venom Hydra
Force Weapon
Force Armor (or I suppose Prismatic if you have the gear, but I'm not there yet at all)
I also think Teleport (Fracture) w/ Illusionist passive is easily the Wizard's best panic button. It's up quite a bit, and the images you spawn seem to be invulnerable (always seem to last full duration, which might get nerfed) giving you good DPS time if the enemies are distracted. I prefer Arcane Orb over Blizz/Shock Pulse spam, but I think Blizz + Piercing Orb is more versatile and safer overall, since Arcane Orb is not as useful when you face shielding or invulnerable elite packs.