I also enjoy the Temporal trait in my games. And while APB12 are the best weapon in a max tech game Temporal is still a great trait, even weapon wise. The Distortion Burst and the Accelerator are both great weapons even in an APB ship design. They can take the place of the shield depleters and offer either more regular damage plus good shield depletion for the Distortion Burst or even more shield depletion at better range for a little extra cost.
Production wise extra cost is nothing for temporal because of the temporal spaceyards. Cost wise... most of the cost in temporal weapons is in radioactive. I don't know about anyone else but I can count the number of times I have run out of radioactives on one hand (or anything other than minerals for that matter).
The advantages for the Temporal are much improved production, good weapons that can Last clear to the end game and a scanner built right in with everything. And of course nice happiness controls built in as well. The weakness of temporal is higher costs and mostly it only improves on things that can be gained normally anyways.
Like all the extras I would argue that it is worthwhile but not so dominating that if you have it you win and if you don't you lose(I think that title could only possibly goto advanced storage techniques).
But that is just my opinion.
PS: I never play tactical combat even in single player. It makes it too easy.
I actually find it quite satisfying to develop strategy orders for the AI that make it fight effectively without direct intervention. It's also good practice for PBW.