I know how you feel. There's a lot to be said for collaborative mining where you have some productive miners tearing away at the 'roids and somebody driving the equivalent of an articulated truck to carry the stuff away but it does get kindof boring if you keep doing that for too long.

I'm still a comparative newbie but I do enjoy Danger Mining for precious minerals in low security areas. This was relatively easy last weekend but since they've bugfixed and subsequently turned-up the pirate threat I've not tried it since. I think I'll get a little better 'tooled up' before I head back out to those low security zones.