I consider Ordnance Expert up there with Gunnery Implants, at least for the flagship. I always want to take at least Tech 2 and Industry 2 just for those two skills (plus Navigation for burn speed and early T-Jump). Elite Polarized Armor is also nice for flagships that want to vent spam, although the normal effect is good for armor tanking (and required for ships that have no shields).
For me, if I want Combat and Leadership 5, I need to decide whether to take the third skill in either Tech (Flux Regulations) or Industry (Polarized Armor). I guess it can go into sixth skill in Combat or Leadership instead.
For lategame builds, best of the best + hull restoration allows 100% CR without combat endurance, effectively giving the player and all officers an extra skill point (if not caring about the PPT, which most ships do not need more of).
Also good for alpha core Radiant, who only starts with 20% max CR. Combat Endurance alone only raises it to 35%, which is not enough to get it out of the yellow. When player can stack both Hull Restoration and Crew Training, he can get up to 30% (more likely 25%) more to raise that 35% max CR to 60+%.
One of the QOL picks, Field repairs, has some upsides for combat as well: its good for chain battling and for saving supplies from fighting; off the top of my head I don't remember if the increased repair rate corresponds to an increase in supply consumption while repairs are ongoing, but the free repairs make it so that more battle damage falls into the "free" range. Also 30-40% CR and hull on recovery is 30-40% less supplies spent on ship loss. Combined with hull restoration it basically redefines what it means to "win" a fight: even heavy losses don't impact the bottom line very much.
Field Repairs also works in multi-round combat within the same encounter. If you take damage and retreat, you get your free repairs before player can start round two (or disengage and end the encounter).
The thing I like most about hull restoration is that it allows playing squishier ships guilt free. Previous patch I used to play mostly capital ships and fights would play out very slowly often just grinding down enemy CR.
What I like most about Hull Restoration is I can lose about half my fleet or more and all of my ships have a not insignificant chance of getting recovered without any d-mods. It also makes getting pristine ships from the enemy feasible (especially Vanguards). Great when I want to loot automated ships since they cannot be bought or built.
In previous releases, if I lost a ship, it was an immediate reload. Hull Restoration has mostly eliminated the need to reload the moment one of my ships died. I have a grand intolerance for d-mods of any kind in my fleet. If I had a favorite skill in the game, it is Hull Restoration, and it is probably the sixth skill I get. (My progression in of my 0.95 games were Navigation, Field Repairs, Ordnance Expert, Polarized Armor, Industrial Planning, and Hull Restoration.)
That said, if not for the extra max CR, Hull Restoration would not be so great if player has money to replace lost ships or if the fleet is lone flagship (Ziggurat) and losing it is a fleet wipe. As it is, it is like spending two points on Crew Training (going from Polarized Armor to Hull Restoration) instead of one (getting just Crew Training).