I just made the compacter from thermal, expecting it to have a decent speed at making the gears, however, it seems like it is the default speed.
For a machine that is in the mid-game tier, I would expect it to be faster, and have a much higher cost than it does currently. I think that a few thousand RF/t would be appropriate for it.
I don't know if the compactor is an intended machine to use, but I thought that it would be faster, considering that you can still craft it.

If you want to contact me on discord, my username is "thecodingchicken [HV]".

The compactor from TE is intended as a slower but energy efficient way of producing gears and plates. You can use TE's augment system to add machine processing speed upgrades (they're called something like that anyway).

If you want substantial speed for gears at the expense of more power used, opt for a gear mold in a fluid solidifier that can overclock the recipe