Originally posted by Trakehner:

If you run around in a hurry all the time, you WILL miss things. You have to slow down and look around.

Also, the copper nodes, or any of them for that matter go below the surface too.

The grind is only as bad as you make it if you don't exercise proper strategy and preparation.

For some proper preparation is harder than for others. It is why I offered up the way I have been doing it in my SP playthrough. Normally on a server with friends and it is much easier that way. Like any survival game though if you can plan and execute well then you can easily survive.
I think some people play Survival Genre as the Call of Duty type games are less popular. Issue is you can not play survival like you do COD. Would never work for very long no matter how good you think you are.