It doesn't sound like you've done battle craft leves. For the most part, running around mindlessly killing things is exactly what you do. You also get gear from random chests. You can also catch a fate here and there in between. You can also kill random enemies in certain areas in between that drop rare loot. You can also pick up a random mission that might yield something beneficial.

And you don't run back to turn them in, you warp back when you're finished.

This is EXACTLY what you are looking for. There's the escort missions, but you can just skip those.

*edit

I always buddy up for leve farming when I can. You can increase the difficulty to max, and link your leve to theirs.