The distraction reward, the one that restores the squad's action points, is potentially the most overpowered reward. It can really change an engagement.
Of course other rewards are potentially powerful as well. A facility lead, for example, could change the strategic game.
Two solutions readily present themselves. One could be making distraction only appear as a choice when the squad is still in concealment. That would give a boost when you are setting your guys up, but not in the middle of a firefight.
The other would be to split the rewards like many others. Give the easy one a bonus that grants the hacker two action points (to make up for loosing one for the hack) and the harder one to restore the squad's action points.
So, maps and mission types. I've noticed a few different map types. You've got high urban, slums, suburban, and wilderness (including Advent bases and Advent train raids).
Those different map types have different strategies. The high urban maps have a lot of verticality and a lot of long, wide roads and plazas. They would seem to heavily favor snipers hitting the enemy from above. The slums have close together buildings with some verticality. I think rangers can really shine here by sneaking around for slums. Grenadiers are pretty frequently highly useful in all map types for their grenade demolition except for the wilderness maps where early grenades cannot easily destroy trees and heavy rocks.
Some missions seem to prefer certain map types. VIP extraction (both of allies and takin Advent VIPs) seem to favor the high urban maps. Protect the device and destroy the device maps seem to favor the slum and suburban ones. Hack the device and procure the item missions may have the broadest spectrum appearing across multiple map types. I'm not sure if these map types are the only ones that that those missions can appear on, but they appear to prefer those map types (and I could be wrong).
So mission types differ on how they treat both the time limit and whether you need to evac or destroy all enemies. For VIP missions, you need to evac from a specific location and have a time limit that runs through the whole mission (although I think it is longer than the time limit for most other mission types). For hacking, procure the item, and destroy the device, there is a time limit initially until you complete the task in question at which point you simply need to clean up the remaining enemies and do not need to evac. For protect the device, you need to defeat all enemies before they destroy the device, no time limit but enemies will often start shooting at the device from turn one creating a de facto time limit. The same de facto time limit applies to retaliation missions which do not require evacing. Supply raid missions require you to destroy all enemies, no time limit, no evac. There is also no time limit for facility missions but you do need to evac for them after completing the objective.
A relevant different exists between the evac missions and non-evac ones. In most missions, you obtain any corpses and the like from the mission. However, if you evac you do not receive those corpses. Corpses are important for a variety of research and building tasks.
VIP missions are probably the most difficult, generally. The combination of having a hard time limit and a specified evac position can make a for a difficult mission. Plus you have a vulnerable VIP in tow. If it is for the kidnapping of an Advent VIP then you need to knock him out and have someone carry him (or kill him for a lesser reward). When you are extracting a friendly VIP you may start out of concealment or you may need to break him out of prison. Your specific extracting point may be a bit difficult to get to as well. However, if you bomb the evac site (or the enemy does), a new evac site will be created. This can be good or bad because you don't have any control over where the evac site lands. If you have a few turns to spare but are up against many enemies who are settled in to good defensive positions then it may be a decent ploy to bomb your own evac site. Then again, if you are down to two turns and just in range you might want to be a bit more careful with your explosives. You cannot call your own evac sites for VIP missions. Keep in mind that if one of your operatives falls unconscious or dies during a evac mission you will need to carry the body to keep the operative and his gear. Because carrying an operative essentially deprives you of two units, it isn't a bad idea to priotorize enemies that can knock a unit unconscious, most notably stun lancers but also mutons and Andros.
That said, VIP missions provide valuable intel and when you extract a friendly VIP you get a new staff member (which can include rescuing a previously captured XCOM operative). So bring your top guys for VIP missions and keep moving.
Be aware that picking up a unit does not take an action (although it cannot be done after you've completed your actions), but dropping the unit does take an action.
By the way, it can be worth considering calling for evac during a mission even if things are generally going well for you. It is possible to generally be in tactical command but have a trooper suffering from poison, fire, acid, or another ailment that may kill him. In that situation, calling for an evac and pulling that operative can be a good way to save the operative.