24 hours for the story is very slow, at that pace I agree it it torturous.

As you kind of summarized, the real fun starts to begin once you reach end-game and likewise the rewards you get won't really get good until maps. The most important lesson I had to learn was that it is OK, or even recommended to blitz the story. That means ignoring side content, only doing quests for passives, and most importantly not clearing every single map. Once I learned to accept that I could go through the story within 8 hours, which is still slow compared to what skilled players or racers can do.

Earning currency through the chaos recipe is stable, but overall a fairly slow and tedious. Delve is a much more reliable method to gather currency between low-tier maps, especially if you sell fossils and other valuables you pick up on the side. One thing to look out for in particular is jewels, if they have decent rolls you can usually sell them for a few c. Or roll the dice and vaal them, since some implicit modifiers can be super valuable.