google for leaf sweeper. I find mine to be much quicker than either a leaf blower or a rake, and much easier to use than a rake. For those too lazy to google its a human powered street sweeper that dumps whatever it sweeps up into a perhaps 9 cubic foot cloth bucket, then you dump the bin when it gets full. For $150 you can buy one that will fall apart in a year, or for $200 you can buy one that apparently will last a lifetime (so far). As an exercise it's pretty weak, rates as a bit less than walking up a hill, but probably more than hiking level with a backpack. If you're strong and talented enough you can push it one handed while talking on the phone or whatever. Its basically silent, a laptop like "whirr" from the sweeping brushes. On a good one you can adjust the brush height such that it sweeps bare air accomplishing nothing, or digs into the dirt with extreme effort, or ideally somewhere in between. With a bad one you adjust it by varying the height you hold the handle, which must be incredibly unergonomic.
In the long run the solution to hatred of maintenance of deciduous trees is a chainsaw and an evergreen sapling, but I digress. There are people trapped in prisons, err, I mean overactive homeowners associations, who have to do exactly what the warden says exactly when the warden tells them to do it, but they were dumb enough to pay a huge quantity of money to give up their freedom, so serves them right.