It's much easier than it was admittedly. But it's totally dismissive to act as if there is no grind required when sitting in Deep Space waiting for random HGE's is still a thing, and while trading for g5 mats is such a slap in the face. The amount of CDC's required to g5 the number of HRPs in your average combat build, still demands hours of sitting in Deep Space, doing nothing but chasing signal sources.
That's not to speak of unlocking the engineers in the first place, and all of the guaranteed monotony that comes with delivering repeated quantities of rares.
Be objective, and be honest. It wont undermine your point so much.
Don't sit there waiting for one kind of USS, drop into the others grab random mats and bounties. Every time you change instance the RNG resets and you'll not wind up waiting in an unlucky instance, you can also have fun while doing it.
I unlocked the engineer who wants tea in an FDL over a few sessions of casual pirate blasting as the tea pulled them in during the journey.
Boredom is optional.