I've been using drones to collect leaves. A tcon axe with silk touch won't even use durability when used on leaves. If you're good with conditionals, you can set it to skip leaf harvest when you are running short on saplings.
While on the subject, Lumber Axe + Lava Crystal + Drone + Jungle Tree = Insane Charcoal
I was using a chest with a bunch of obsidian lumber axes and manually patching them up now and then, but with the new update, I should be able to easily autorepair with drone crafting.
I wish I'd thought of this, it's more elegant than the system I came up with. I've been using an Etho timer (vanilla timer; made of hoppers, comparators, and sticky pistons) hooked up to a dropper. I have to reset the timer length every time I add more endoflames to the system, which is annoying and requires math. It's still a good system for fueling my flash boiler though.