I play a similar type of self-limiting HonestMan to you - with the exception that I allow Rally spamming within the limitations set out here: Link Rally to Officer Promotion
I don’t know how long most missions are, because I’ve never bothered to count, but with the exception of Lairs, they don’t feel like they go on too long - and those that do usually do so because something epic has happened (I still fondly remember stalking a group of 15 well-armed 1-shotting Crabbies through a maze of ruins, setting ambushes for them and taking them out one-by-one because I was completely outnumbered and outgunned and had to figure out how to use the terrain to even the odds in my favour - happy days… ;0)
You are clearly a much better player than I, because I honestly can’t see how you limit a Lair to just 5 turns without spamming skills. Lairs are a slog. They’re an interesting challenge, but who has a spare 4 hours to fight an intermediate battle every other day or so? If they were the Boss Fight of Panda Dens, then I’d have more time for them, but as it is, I simply let them mature into Citadels unless I have to take them out for some reason.
All that said, the thing I most miss in this game is the sense of menace! As I’ve said elsewhere, my favourite missions in XCOM were the Forested areas, where you were creeping through the dark, jumping at every strange noise emanating from the shadows. That never got old for me, and that feeling of dread & tension is completely lacking in this game.
I’m also going to contradict myself here, because with the exception of Lairs, I don’t really feel like I ever get enough time to savour the tactics of any particular mission. There are exceptions - the Crab-hunt described above was one; and I vividly remember another where I was forced to set up an Overwatch screen in a Goo Zone, to tempt the Scylla out into a deathtrap because I couldn’t take the fight to her. But those kinds of moments are few and far between, and stand out more because of that.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the mechanics of this game play much better than any other TBS I have tried; but they get squandered in the general morass of OP play (on both sides) and the unrelenting speed of the encounters.
Which raises an interesting point. I am aware from several interviews I’ve read with the likes of Jake Solomon, and the recent PP Q&A, that there is a prevalent feeling amongst TBS game developers that slowly developing tactics are somehow boring and wrong. The term ‘overwatch creep’ gets bandied about liberally, and all of the meta-builds that we see - from artificial timers to spam-filled skill sandwiches - are designed to encourage players to push forward without any regard to tactics and get stuck in as quickly as possible.
This, in my opinion, is a Bad Thing. If a player wants to take his time and preserve his soldiers, that’s his prerogative - especially in a solo game - and denying him that choice is removing a large amount of player agency from the game.
That said: there’s nothing wrong with a bit of carrot instead of stick. Meld in Enemy Within was a fabulous mechanic for me in that resepect. It meant that you had to choose between overextending yourself for that one extra canister that would get you the Perk you’d been promising your favourite Squaddie for ages, or playing it safe and not getting shot to sh!%. And it was YOUR choice! You weren’t being forced to race against an artificial clock, and you weren’t getting bounced into a slugfest because your dropzone had stupidly been set right on top of the enemy Queen.
I think there is a lot of scope for mechanics like that in this game, which have so far been completely squandered. In the early game, this is how Scavenging Canisters can work; but by the mid-game onwards, the Crabbies are so powerful that it’s not even worth doing a Scavenging Mission because the risk/reward ratio is completely f!*£%d. Haven Rescue Missions would mean so much more if every Civvie you evaced during the mission got you extra WP or a Resource reward at the end of the mission - but as it stands, they’re just hindrances you hide away in the furthest corner possible, unless you’re the kind of player who likes to use them as Siren fodder.
So in general, while most missions are a-bout the right length… … … I feel that they are lacking certain elements: be it meaningful tactical choices, a sense of tension or simply a turn’s more time for the situation to develop and for you to actually feel like you have some agency other than simply reacting to what’s coming at you.
Excuse the ramble, and I hope that makes sense.