> "run without calling the tycho build" on your machine only, sorry.

I call the tycho build only before pushing a PR.
PDE tests are much faster than tycho tests. For instance, the source lookup tests take a few minutes in PDE.

> Every developer as a different setup. Yet, using target/requirement by default is likely to work more often than C:/jboss-as-7.1.1.Final 

I think, it is easier to set the property than wait an hour for the tycho build to be run.
Except that, the test should be run without the tycho build.