Hello!
After years of only logging in occasionally to do some breeding I decided to wander around the lost grove a bit and was completely lost with what I was meant to be doing there. So I've got a few question around the 'how' and 'why' of late game lost grove. My goal according to the zone progression box is to clear Ancient Temple's First Floor (South), with (North) already done, so clearly at some point I had a grasp of the ancient temple.

The other relevant info I can think of on where I'm at:
I'm running earth/light/air as my team. They're max stats aside from mana, with mostly rank 4 proficiencies, with a mix of legendary and mythical lost grove crafted gear with a few upgrades. My barracks include rank 3 training grounds and trading post, with no upgrades to the temple.

And the scattered questions I've been wondering about:
1. What's the incentive to do the temple or rest of the lost grove if I don't like battling for its own sake? I only vaguely remember there are themes there.
2. How do other people engage with the lost grove? Is normal late game lost grove just the ancient temple, doing laps of the rest of the zone to farm the named enemies and daily quests, both, or something else? How long do peole's runs normally take? Tangential to that, is running the pre-lost grove dungeons still worthwhile?
3. How much of a benefit is there to having a super-stat team or different elemental comp, and how much of a time and/or gold sink would I be looking at to swap?
4. Is equiptment something for me to upgrade on my own as I get materials, or invest in buying from other players asap to be able to reach the 'real' or 'profitable' content quicker?
5. Are skill ranks a huge deal? Will a team need them fully maxed out to finish the temple?
6. Barracks seems important. Is that correct? What are the top priorities there?
7. Are all the guides, info, and advice on the temple totally scattered? I've found bits and pieces of advice on specific battles, but not any condensed/simple strategy reference.
8. And finally, based on all the other stuff I'm wondering if I should be attempting the temple. As a matter of how prepared I am for the challenge and how appealing it is to clear at all.

Edit bonus question: sell or salvage spare gear drops?

I know a lot of those don't have correct answers and are personal preference, but I'm not up to date enough to make those decisions. Whatever answers or musings people have to offer I'll be interested to hear.

I hate battling, but I am a completionist. I have completed all of LG including Vexx.
1. The incentive for completing the temple for me was the possibility of themed nests. It also gives you more bosses available for the tasks for the few events that are LG only. The bosses in the temple are guaranteed unlike the rest of LG where they are random if they will spawn or not. Killing Vexx once will give you one of the Vexx rikkis, after that it is random if he will drop one. Personally, I don't care for the rikkis enough to deal with that fight anymore.
2. Mainly I just run temple to see if I can find any nests. Occasionally I'll run the other areas of LG to grab the chests. The chests in the temple rarely have any gold in them. The ones in the rest of LG are more likely to have gold. I play on a tablet, so battling takes a lot longer for me. Plus, I'm usually more focused on my breeding projects so I just kind of putz around LG rather than have a strick LG run. So, I can't really give an estimate on how long it takes.
3. Super stats help (especially with hp), but aren't required. I always prefer to give myself any extra help I can when it comes to battling. Since I'm more into breeding, I made most of my super stat party.
You can definitely finish all of LG with earth/light/air. I did it with water/light/air. I currently run all of LG (other than Vexx) with water/fire/air simply because it is faster.
4. It is usually cheaper to make/upgrade your own gear, but there are many of us who will upgrade gear at cost. It costs approximately 1 mil gold to fully rank one piece of gear. LG is designed to be a gold sink. I'd focus on relic first since it gives more pew pew power.
5. Skill ranks are very important. You will need to max them out. The temple gives more rank xp, so it is the best place to rank. You will find the final rank is painfully slow.
6. The barracks are also important. The training grounds when fully ranked gives you 300 passive bonus to str/int/dex/agi as well as access to battle boosts for bosses and some of the more annoying random encounters. Blacksmith is needed to make and level gear. Trading post gives you access to better flasks which are needed for the harder temple bosses. Temple of light isn't very good until the final level, which gives the buff a rez ability that has definitely saved me a few times. The trackers hut is probably the least useful. I've never noticed much of difference when I've used the boosts even with it maxed out.
7. The guides are rather scattered. Many are incomplete or not entirely correct. A lot are earth tank based, so at least you'll have that going for you. I used this guide for most of my temple progress:
https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=99803&page=1#1
At this point I'm able to power through most of the temple (thank goodness because having to pay attention to battle strategies is not my strong point).

Whether the grind is worth it is definitely a personal decision. Feel free to poke me if you have any questions and I will try to help.

Edit: This is the team I used for everything including Vexx
https://www.sylestia.com/view/pets/?petid=5750728
https://www.sylestia.com/view/pets/?petid=7357218
https://www.sylestia.com/view/pets/?petid=5985217

This is the team I currently use for faster battles
https://www.sylestia.com/view/pets/?petid=8565379
https://www.sylestia.com/view/pets/?petid=7357218
https://www.sylestia.com/view/pets/?petid=7026817