Bit of a rant, bit of a victory.
I got to the witchery quest where I had to go to the Otherworld/Spirit World (can't remember the exact name). I'd learnt from a prior game that potion effects last. So I brewed up one of the magic crops super dooper potions (with all 6) quaffed it and went to sleep. I then spent the next 15 minutes or so running around looking for enough of the nightmare cotton. I actually ran enough to deplete my food bar to nothing, so I was taking damage (but regeneration was keeping me alive).
<SNIP>
Now the victory. I was then able to make the dream catcher thingy so on the second attempt, I then got into the dream world rather than the nightmare world. Because I hadn't accepted any reward for the first infusion stone quest, I was then able to claim skeleton essence seeds for the dream world. This meant that I was able to storm (within reason) through the progression so I now have an ender chest.
If you're going to use quest rewards, why not just one that gives you a blaze rod or blaze powder (isn't there a quest that gives cinderpearl flowers?)
That's pretty much the only hold up really in getting an ender chest because obviously you can harvest pearls from oysters and obsidian from a copper vat