Smith of Kitava Temper Weapon Issues

My Smith of Kitava empowered attacks build is nearing lvl 90, and wanted to address two issues I've noticed:

1. There is no way to improve the quality of Temper Weapon. Temper Weapon is not a skill gem, it's part of the Ascendancy, so Gemcutter's Prism does not improve quality. The tooltip on Temper Weapon indicates quality improvements increase skill speed. If we could improve skill speed it would improve gameplay significantly (especially for an empowered attacks build).

2. Although the Temper Weapon skill indicates it combusts on hit, when I use Mace Strike with no enemies around it still consumes a charge. This doesn't line up with the skill description.

If I'm incorrect on the above two things please enlighten me.

Cheers.