I agree w/ Wicked Spirit - the point of early rushes is to kill villagers and cripple your enemy's economy. This should be the #1 priority w/ a tool or early bronze rush.
A few considerations:
Which troops are you employing? A cav rush can devastate an opponent's economy, and repel a tool defense, but unless in the company of a scout, they will have a tough time tracking fleeing vills, due to inexplicable blindness (you'd think they'd be able to see a lot better up on horseback, but NOOO). Thus, once you lose sight of the vills, the cavalry should either be sent to another enemy, or return to destroy the now-vacant town.
On the other hand, a CA rush should have no trouble tracking and slaying vills, and is damn-near useless in destroying property - that's not their purpose, so don't do it. Once they are done slaying vills, either send them to help out elsewhere, or use them to scout out all the local resources, chokepoints, etc.
A civ like Macedonia, which has no quick moving tool/bronze troops (save cav/scouts), can still rush, even if it seems oxymoronic to say so. Mace axers can even track fleeing vills. Their ultra-buff hops also benefit from the LOS bonus, but they won't be able to chase wheeled vills anywhere, even with Aristocracy.
A bronze attack from a slow-moving army, like Mace's, might not be considered a "rush." Regardless of your semantic position on this, your priorities are now quite different. If you've lumbered into town w/ slow moving hops and stonies, the vills will flee in terror, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it, unless you've come prepared w/ gold-intensive cav to speed ahead of your gold-intensive assault squad. Nice to have, but expensive to field. No, with such slow moving, heavy hitting troops, level the town, and secure the area. Keep moving on like this to gradually dominate the board, and leave the vills fewer places to hide. Walls and comps at chokepoints further lessen the options for those terrified refugees.
Another consideration is the civ under attack. For instance, if I'm rushing a Hittite player, yes, I will want to remove his villie population, but I know he will need a LOT of wood to take advantage of his civ's seige strength. Therefore, demolishing his buildings is the #2 priority, as this will force him to rebuild, wasting precious wood in the process. You may not remove him early, but you can cripple his wood supply, and when you see a handful of heavy cats later, as opposed to dozens, you'll be happier you took the time.