I was talking to someone recently about the new anomaly mechanic, and an interesting thought came to mind.
The mechanic for scanning Anomalies, according to the person I was talking to, was what he envisioned mining should be.
I.e, shooting a single target until it blows up, collecting the ore from within after, and not the asteroid pee shooting we have now.
True enough, in games such as Elite Dangerous, the X series, and I believe Star Citizen too, this form of mining is the norm, and what you could describe as closer to the real thing.
Now, on the other hand I know that many people enjoy the system as is, and I have no desire to see it removed. Instead, I think that a mechanic similar to the anomaly mechanic could be added AND we keep the current asteroid system. Basically an NPC spawning that looks like a giant rock, but can only be damaged my mining lasers, said rock can then drop Ore in significant quantities, which is supplemented by regular old shooting of asteroids (while you wait for the big rocks to spawn?).
Obviously, just as the anomaly mechanic, multiple miners mining the rock, and then one miner "stealing" all the ore found could present some issues, though mining has been, and should be the basis for conflict, so having miners shoot each other over Ore sounds like great fun.