you've figured it out correctly but don't know the time frame. the abilities have been rebalanced numerous times so as to weaken some of the more abusive combos that existed in the past.

the holy trinity no longer exists, really. in the past (like the distant past, patch 1.05 almost a year ago) the abilities worked kind of differently so you could get some abusive combinations between Malice and Cleansing Brilliance (could instagib entire fleets). the third member of the trinity could have been almost anything but most commonly used would have been the Rapture with Vengeance, which combined very well with Animosity on the Radiance. 

both of those combos (Malice + Cleansing Brilliance and Vengeance + Animosity) still kinda work in the game today, but some re-balancing of the abilities means they're no longer abusively powerful like they were in the past. these days most advent players will build Mothership, Halcyon, and Radiance and that might be it. 

another relic of the past was the relative state of balance of the various frigates and cruisers in the game. in Sins 1.0 especially the most powerful ships by far were the Assailant and Javelis frigates. Illuminators were the least powerful LRF (they're now the most powerful LRF, alot has changed) and carriers were basically totally ineffective for a few reasons. first of all they only had 1 squadron at the time (advent carriers may have had 2 though). second was that squadrons did less damage and were somewhat easier to kill. third is that it was actually quite effective to spam Flak frigates as a counter against the rampant spamming of LRF based fleets. flaks did better damage against LRFs at the time and have always been very hard to kill, for their cost anyway. so in a world filled with LRFs and Flaks it left the advent with few good weapons. Their LRF was weaker and more expensive than the competition and their carrier was neutralized by all that Flak. more these reasons Advent players really leaned heavily on capital ship weapon systems and special abilities for a big portion of their damage output. 

thankfully the current balance of the game is pretty good and Illuminators and Drone Hosts now work very well. Cap Ships are now back in a mainly supporting role in larger fleets and are not the offensive pillars they used to be. 

GreyFox? Is the BattleBall still viable in Rebellion?

Thanks GoaFan, i've been out of circulation for a while.

Stop trolling!