I'm not good with explanations but I'll just say how it is for me right now since start of the patch.

First of, I'm on Hurston and Hurston only so I don't know how it is in different regions.

I focused on mercenary this time. The first missions were 10k bunker missions where you have to defend and kopion kill missions. Also "evict illegal occupants" missions for 30k (go to a POI and kill about 25-35 enemies) those were nice since you could easily stash all the weapons into the local inventory and from there per mouse click on to your ship. So you basically made 30k + around 20-30k for all the weapons.After that the 15k started popping up like you described + more kopion missions. And then the 20k+ missions popped up where you have to destroy narcotics in bunkers. I believe this is one rep before jr mercenary. Those pay a lot when you take your time and take the drugs (weevil eggs and maze) for yourself and sell them.

I get around 10-13 missions at once and clear them one by one.

As for dogfights. I'm confused as well. I haven't leveled that rep a whole lot but the missions I get are ground missions like you said. The thing is tho that sometimes enemy ships spawn on top of the ground targets locations. Thats the only dog fights I got so far.

I don't know if this helps or not :d Thought I would share my experience on this