I, too, am southern born and bread and "folks" feels quite comfortable to me: i use it often (and with multiple meanings). There's "my folks" which refer to my parents as well as the general "those folks over there." Y'all is also quite comfortable to me as second person plural.

"Peeps" definitely feels like it belongs to younger folks and to a sort of playful hip persona someone would put on, not to their natural state.