Err... I have to disagree with you there! The Tempest is miles ahead of everything but the Hyperion. A Lasher might take down an ill equipped cruiser with short range weapons if it had a maxed out tech and combat tree. A Tempest will take down the entire SDF with those bonuses. The drone distracting enemies is a massive massive advantage! It does a better job imo than a standard frigate escort, and they scale together perfectly. For a few tasks I'd rather have an Afflictor - taking out an Onslaught or Dominator is easier in an Afflictor - but for everything else the Tempest just wins.
The Tempest is good, excellent in a certain role, but in all-around fighting, it is equal or slightly better than other good attack frigate types. As a grunt controlled by the AI in a frigate swarm, the Tempest does not perform much better than other top frigates. They are just as prone to stupidity as other ships, and, in my experience, tend to die about as much as the other good attack frigate types. It is miles ahead of other frigates in one thing, the cost to buy one. At least it does not need rare weapons (like needlers) to be effective.
Like the Hyperion, the Tempest cannot destroy the entire defense fleet in a single battle due to CR decay, even with Hardened Subsystems. It can kill about half the fleet. It took me three non-pursuit battles with Tempest, two with Hyperion, and repairs were done between each battle.
I tried the Lasher against the Hegemony defense fleet and running out of ammo for my light assault guns was more of a problem than CR decay, even without Hardened Subsystems. It can take out about a fifth or fourth of an entire defense fleet before assault gun ammo runs out. In other words, a super Lasher can destroy a defense fleet in four or five battles. Not as fast as Hyperion or Tempest, but it can do it.
A Lasher flagship with max Combat and Technology, and 100% CR can, in a one-on-one fight, destroy any ship without much difficulty except a Paragon. Against a Paragon, one-on-one, its only chance to win is an all needler configuration, which is a less efficient configuration against other weaker ships.