Have you played around at all with the different drop buttons and lock options? Once I have containers set up with some of the different items in them, I can run past each container, open the container, click one button, then move on to the next to unload. I don't even have to look at what I'm doing other than to make sure I hit the right button... I've sometimes did the wrong one and either dropped everything into the crate or else picked up everything out of the crate. Heh.
The only things it doesn't work with is when you either don't have an item in the crate yet or you don't have an item in the crate that has space to stack on top of. So something like an engine or battery won't work because they don't stack. And full stacks don't let you drop more of the item. So I'll set up an ammo crate with a lot of stacks of 1 ammo so that later I can drop ammo quickly. It is definitely a bit of setup, but speeds up dropping off stuff significantly. I do still have to manually drop the things that don't stack, but ~90% of my inventory is emptied without having to manually do it.
It would be nice if they improved that some more. In Night of the Dead, for example, there is a similar kind of drop off, but where it would drop the same items even if they couldn't stack, so long as there was an empty space. Alternatively, they could add an option to the drone so it can work similarly to the drone in Planet Crafter, where you set inputs on crates and set a dump crate that you have set to output everything and then the drone will automatically take stuff from your dump crate and put it away for you so long as space is available. But those are just some nice QoL bonuses and I'm fine as it is without them, though I wouldn't mind seeing them added.
Yes, that's what it means. Personally, I'm fine with how it is now. But I'm organized and it takes practically no time to work with it for me. But a lot of people aren't organized and it takes them a long time to find stuff. So I'd support crafting from containers. And, even though I'm fine with it as it is now, I wouldn't complain about having crafting from containers in my game. Inventory management is fine in a game, but after playing the game so long, it just isn't too important to me. Besides, having to run to different crates to get what you need to craft something and then back to the workstation is less about inventory management and more about just immersion or realism, which I'm less concerned about.