It's up to the flight leader to set the right mood for this sort of thing. If the mission is a fighter sweep... i.e. a REAL Combat Air Patrol (CAP), then preventing/interdicting enemy is the goal. Flying to the nearest red dot is not always the goal - sometimes, you keep your alt and wait for the big prize. Unescorted buffs at 25K, sometimes you have a low CAP and look for the solitary goon struggling to remain undetected.
The point is - landing without kills after a semi-long flight isn't a huge disappointment. Sometimes the mission is to provide security for the flanks of the real operation. Good squads rotate their missions around a little so as not to make it boring doing the same thing over and over.