As a max TH9 in masters, I feel your pain. I don't have the time to stay online and I sure as hell won't be buying village guards for gems. So once my shield runs out, I am inevitably hit hard for whatever I have - even if the attacker loses resources doing so, crazily.
Fortunately the only resource I need to stockpile is DE (walls eat up gold/elixir) but elixir in particular barely rises either.
Max TH8 grinding last 100 skulls hovering around high crystal and low master.
No problems with loot, doing up to 12 skulls on an excellent day and 4 on a crappy one raiding with war armies. Trophies are the problem. I'm losing more per defense that I'm getting offered per attack.
I think some troop cook times should be lowered but certainly not all of them. It would help get people online more if there wasn't the issue of waiting an hour + between attacks. That waiting is disrupting my clans chat flow significantly.