I've rebuilt a fair few while doing restorations, I've never used a tension meter. It's not like torquing down a head. or doing up a bolt, there's just too many variables, each will be slightly more or less than the next, within reason.
I tighten each spoke down to have showing a couple threads showing, once all done then check how they feel, often you have to tighten until there's one or no thread showing on some or all.
What's more important is keeping the hub/rim central, then start to true the wheel, both up/down and left/right or runout, that is all a balancing act. Providing the all the spokes are straight, same length, including the threads, the rim/hub is true, how tight each spoke is really doesn't matter as they won't be far from each other. Remember no more than half a turn on any spoke when tightening/adjusting, and take your time. It really is a by feel/experience job, it's why it cost so much to get them rebuilt.
Once it all true, they will need checking after 500 miles or so and then periodically, lack of the latter is what wrecks them long term.
I've built what could be called "a lot" of bicycle wheels. And read all I could find regarding the mechanics and engineering of it (the theoretical side).
All that (theory + experience) lead me to this conclusion:
If spokes on the same side of the hub have tension within +-10% difference between each other
and if the total spoke tension is high enough for the spokes to not go slack (and have the nipples start unwinding),
a wheel can last for decades. No spokes breaking, no coming out of true ("touch-ups").
The problem I face with building motorcycle wheels is:
a) not having a wide enough wrench to minimize any nipple damage, especially when unlacing old wheels with stuck nipples.
b) not being able to more accurately confirm if I've gotten the spoke tensions to be equal enough (I see no way of being able to measure the absolute values to confirm that the total tension is not too low, or too high - so guess-work is left there).
For now, motorcycle wheels I've built or serviced, have worked fine, using a method similar to what you've described.
Likewise, measuring tension by measuring nipple tightening torque is very far from being precise.
So, using a guitar pluck to judge the tension evenness by the tone is more precise, but I'm not very "musical" so it takes a lot of time and effort. Wanted to see if the torque wrench would get me close enough when the threads and nipple seats are properly lubricated (to make the reading as uniform as possible - and to make the tightening easier on the nipples).
They say a fool and his money are soon parted.
I've been looking at this:
https://www.warp9racing.com/product/spoke-torque-wrench-kit/