I dont disagree with an orbis being an "endgame" goal, that may take an entire month to complete, plenty of videogames have long term goals, they however dont consist of the same monotonous activity for hours.
Stations with markets that have commodities over 50% filled should offer missions that reward players by letting them choose to send commodities to a colonisation project in range. That way within the bubble,or within developed areas , or developed systems, with flush markets it should be easier to develop and expand colonies, without creating commodities out of nothing where there aren't any.
Ideally, construction sites/colonisation ships could also have its own missions pulling commodities from sorroundings, that reward interacting with your new system, getting to know it and falling in love with it, since you are making it yours. As well as establishing it is not "yours" but rather a joint project between your faction and all the npc "investors" you manage to pull. A lot of people seem surprised that they are not allowed to walk around the place like they own it (because they dont) but its understandable when they have had to deliver thousand of tons of crap, including stocking the goddamn fridges of the new station.
In any case, while i do believe grinding should be less, we must ABSOLUTELY HAVE MORE ACTIVITIES involved, haulers are still valuable if you want to develop systems away from civilisation, or need your station today, but goddamn, even mission hauling is more engaging than this.This. Colonization should include the ability to actually colonize in any way, be it combat, trade, or exploration gameplay. Colonized systems should at least somehow differ from just generic ones-nothing. Like, there aren't even any new POIs right now...