To avoid ambiguity or confusion it's best to follow established practice when specifying a time. "PT" refers not to a time, but to a time zone, and can therefore be used (implicitly and unambiguously) to refer to the current time in the Pacific time zone. If you specify a time (rather than a time zone), you should use the correct one (PDT or PST).
Using PST to mean "the current time in the ... 'Then-current' perhaps ought to be allowed. 'Current' is obviously, after all, a deictic term – eg 'This is the Estimate for the current year, 1879-1880'. [Internet] Context informs the time-reference of the period being referred to as 'current', and 'then-current' obviously refers back to the period just mentioned in a passage.
current time in sf, I would argue that "the current rates" gets its point across just fine, given the assumption that most readers will tend not to think the narration prescient. When I was reading that, I didn't see a tense problem as I subconsciously assumed "current" meant 'current' within the time-frame of the topic. How to say that something is "current" but at another point in time P6. With another noun. b.
current time in sf, this day and age: the current time. Originally and chiefly in in this day and age: at the present time; nowadays. Cf. sense 14a (b). Source: Oxford English Dictionary (login required) What about all those words, though? According to the OED, day can mean era and age can mean era.
Aren’t we just saying the same thing ... The expression you're looking for is real time: [Merriam-Webster] : the actual time during which something takes place // the computer may partly analyze the data in real time (as it comes in) — R. H. March // chatted online in real time So: "This is taking too long.
