Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-191.177.125.177-20150210013934/@comment-25370154-20150212141756

It IS more rewarding, but you also tend to use more money since you don't want to spend half of the match waiting for your aircraft to be repaired.

Also, the TDM grants you only 1 research per mission, using normal fuel at least, while Coop gives you 2 or 3 researches together.