....No one was enjoying the system with beta 1....
I'm going to have to pull you up on that - I can't speak for anybody but myself, but I enjoyed the beta 1 system - True, I now have uber ships to fly around in, and I wouldn't wish to be without them - the desire for them was, in the first instance, my reason for going material gathering.
However, gathering materials for engineering became a major, if not primary, activity in my game - and not because I felt compelled to grind, grind, grind - it's because I enjoyed it.
Yes some aspects are tedious (Wake scanning, for example, is not something you can get better at with practice, nor is ship scanning for Unexpected Emission Data and the like) but some others were a revelation.
For example, to get MEF and CIF I had to learn to run bases - this took a bit of work, but damn, the exhilaration I felt when I clocked the first one was brilliant, and every base after that was an attempt to beat my record from the last. Accruing rare data became almost a side-event.
Later, when out surface prospecting, I realised that learning to pick my way through these bases accurately, and yet at speed, had been honing my SRV control to a fine degree - I find I am now able to tackle brutal, jagged terrain with confidence that I would not have even attempted before learning to run the bases.
Furthermore, base running is an excellent wing activity - you all want the data, you go from base-to-base together - everybody gets their go at the timed run, and their chance to bag the data, the crashes and mishaps become a source of hilarity rather than frustration, and after everyone's done, why not spend a few minutes looking for a likely ramp and having an impromptu long-jump contest, or see who can stick the best landing on some tricky ledge?
I like combat too, and enjoy material gathering in RES's and conflict zones, again, I do this mainly with wing-mates..... I like doing the vast majority of it for it's own sake, I think that's the point - it isn't grinding to me, and consequently I'd sometimes find I had to stop because I'd reached my materials target, not because I was sick of it.
Fortunately for me, the new system will still allow me to get my materials this way, as well as introducing the material exchanger for those who don't - but to those who think they don't want to do the hard yards to get the rare stuff directly, I'd simply advise that they at least look up some Youtube guides and see if it's as bad as they fear because, for my part at least, learning the ropes of engineering forced me to develop skills, and led to my finding enjoyment in things that seemed like a chore beforehand - particularly the SRV, which is now probably my favourite ship! (ironic, since I can't engineer it!). Yes the SRV does have handling shortcomings (some quite serious), but with practice you can fly the thing accurately enough, despite these shortcomings.
I hope I've articulated why I enjoyed the outgoing system, and how I've come about my highly-engineered modules - and notice I said not a thing about the RnG experience at the engineers themselves - if you enjoy the journey, the destination comes soon enough - when you're having so much fun that the material cap stops play, the engineer rolls come by the bucket-load - I got what i wanted in the old system, and I bet I'll get on just fine with the new system too.