I've never had any trouble getting teams for my AR/dev blaster. In fact i get, by far, the most tells from random group[ leaders asking me if I want a team and they dont put me off when I say AR/dev. People like blasters on their teams and almost every group somebody makes a comment when thebullets start flying from full auto.
I dont use trip mine or time bomb when teaming. If its not a psycho fast group I will use gun drone and I definitely pull it out on AVs.
Soloing or duoing I use trip mine a ton. I drop one before every spawn in the middle of calrops before engaging. It is nice control for the stuff that gets through caltrops and its eay and quick to drop one each time. For EBs a nest of them laid down does wonders.
It's a set pairing for patient people. You can also stack some real nice ranged defense with diffrent set bonuses.
I think the strength of the sets are the different playstyle they can present compared to straight up nuking. Actually its a strength of CoH as a game that there are certain sets that play differently like dual blades and devices and traps and a set that has some over-the top style like dual pistols. Bravo to the devs for making sets that really do play differently.