Regarding ores, check back on the wiki and find the article on using the prospecting pick. It can help point you in the right direction to finding potential higher concentrations of ores. Vintage story isn't like Minecraft for ore distribution. In basic MC you can pretty much find everything, everywhere; not so much here. Finding the alloys you need to advance near where you've set up base can be a challenge if RNG hasn't been kind to you.
Storage boxes and such that are around the world in ruins, should be able to be picked up on breaking them, for many of them at least. That said, in 1.9.6, a lot of that stuff, and your own stuff like ladders, was being destroyed on breaking when it shouldn't have, it was a bug associated with another change. I know it's fixed in 1.9.7 for ladders, not sure about other things.