I think English may be alone in having so many alternate rules for pronunciation and orthography. I guess this is due to the fact that it has bits of Anglo Saxon, French, German, Latin and all kinds of different stuff mixed up in it.
French, on the other hand, is very consistent (apart from a few place names like Reims) in that you can get to the pronunciation from the written word quite consistently - but it does have funny rules, so you end up only pronouncing half the word.
Finnish is great. Pronunciation is guaranteed from the written word, and the rules are simple. Unfortunately the rest of the language is hideously complex.