That unfortunately seems to be the case. Well hey, if pew-pew ASAP is the #1 priority too, why not do away with supercruise too? Instead you pick up a mission at the board, and as soon as you hit "accept" you're taken to a briefing screen (with a skip button that'll be enabled as soon as the loading that screen is meant to mask is done). Then you'll be dropped straight into the mission instance, and a scripted mission will start going right away. As soon as you complete the mission objective, you'll get a scoreboard and instantly be brought back to the station.
(note: not a serious suggestion, because that would be silly)
I would actually enjoy that, but it isn't Elite.