There has to be another way, for both missions and rare goods. Maybe the ability to negotiate with a contact, bribe, threaten, blackmail, plead, anything to get at least something. Particularly when you are low rep and sometimes struggle to get any missions at all. Currently, relogging or waiting are your only options, neither is fun.
Hm.. there's several other options. You can dump some exploration data to the station owning faction, you can trade to the station owning faction and you can turn in bounties and they raise your reputation with the faction they're issued by.
There is no better option to play the game in a very "free" setting.
You can streamline everything and cut it down to very small increments, so that every day feels like shoveling mud or you add artificial cooldowns. Both of them limit the freedom of interaction.
Some players abuse this freedom. Doesn't make it a bad system as such.
And you can relog as often as you want, if the stuff you're looking for is not in the area, it will not "spawn" .. hello my friends looking for Yttrium. It's in mountainous regions on metal-rich planets. Stop driving around the planes, just because it's easier and faster.
Like I said in some other threads, they could make the whole process a bit more transparent like mining with prospector limpets (I've mined without .. and without collectors .. it's possible, but .. whoaaa), so you can probe planets/regions for the things you're looking for and it will give you immediate feedback if it's there at all or not.
But in general?
Players take what they percieve to be the "easiest way" anyways. If that actually adds to their enjoyment or they just forcefeed themselves pixel progress doesn't seem to matter.
I also play Elder Scrolls Online with my girlfriend. That's one of those "constant progress driven themepark games". It works exactly in those predictable "static/persistent" ways some people seem to favor. For me, that's ultimately boring and if it wasn't for my gf, I wouldn't really play it .. there are no "smart" ways to play it. You just trod along in very small steps but with "huge rewards" (like being the most trusted councelor of some queen after 6 levels or being the "saviour of the planet" right from the start .. just like all other 200k players .. meh(.