Instead of complaining about what they aren't doing right you'd be more constructive in your criticism if you suggested where they ought to go with their direction.
No I chose to complain:
The real complaint I've always had with mining is that there really isnt much of a use for bulk resources. I think the devs realized this when ML came out. They added new types of wood and gave them some nice mods compared to metal. But it wasn't quite enough to build an expansion on so they threw in heartwood quests and community collections to create artificial demand. I have always thought of this as a huge mistake.
Before ML I never saw scriptors at high end ore locations. They were always scripting shadow ore. I wont go into the math or method, but it was possible to make millions/day doing this. But there were plenty of shadow ore locations to go around so I didnt care. After ML, high end ore and wood was given high point values for turn in and all of the sudden I am fighting scripters for my precious few valorite/frostwood locations. I cant imagine how many billions per month was poured into each shard from scripting frostwood and valorite.
In the beginning, mining was they they way I discovered the world. Always looking to improve my mining books, I would be delighted to strike a double agapite location or mark a spot where I could mine three shadow ore nodes. I spent years building and improving my collection of books to give me the best yield in the least amount of time. Of course it isnt the most exicting way to pass the time. From time to time my eye would wander. I would take a look around the area or at the mini map. If I saw something interesting I would take a break and check it out.
As for relaxing, I don't know if I can quite explain this correctly. I was a programmer and am now a data services engineer focusing on storage area network infrastrucure. I spend most of my day thinking. Some days it was damn relaxing just to come home, pop open a beer, log in in and recall around thumping my last object, last target macros for a few hours. It was a nice escape not to have to think.
We are far from that now and I dont think we'll ever get back. Now I must collect and lug around prospecting tools and garg pic axes (and monitor use). I must be a mage to mark runes. I must be geared up to fight ore elemental spawn. I must squint at my pack to find and dispose of small pieces of blackrock I must analyze each and every swing of the pic axe to extrapolate a maximum yield. There is no more exploring necesary. No need to discover a rare resource out in the middle of no where, because it wont last the day.
We added tools to "improve" the process. We added in pvm methods to obtain resources. We added artificial demand to resources. In the end, the yield is far more work for far less to the honest miner/chopper. Yes it was boring and safe before. No it isnt any fun now.
That is the direction we are headed. All my mining books have been re purposed. I dont think Id ever spend the time to rebuild them even if we did turn rng resources off. I have for the most part moved on to other things. My mining is reduced now to shadow ore. It has good use for BODs and the agapite elixers easy to get. So I also mine shadow to turn to agaipite and dump that into clean up brit for a decent amout of points.
Apologies for the rant. Im alomost over it