Before the "just own it!" comments come pouring in, I'd like to be heard out...

Just turned 40 and for the last few years they've been peaking through more and more to where now it's at the point where I need to at least dye my beard and sideburns once a week. My regular hair, at least the sides of it, I can still get away with every 2-3 weeks. For the record, I choose a lighter colored brown to avoid the dye job looking obvious or ridiculous. This has started to turn into a big to do and a big mental strain.

The problems you see, are a few things:

First, I have borderline black hair. As in, the darkest brown anyone can have. So any grey hair stands out like a sore thumb. Second, while they greys are taking over now, there still aren't nearly enough to pull off a proper "salt and pepper" look. For example my side burns are still very much dark brown with just a few thick grays popping through and it just makes for a very unpleasant look to the eye when compared to it being fully dark brown. Lastly, even at 40 now, I still have a relatively young face. I know many will think this is just me being biased, but it is with 1000% certainty that I look noticeably better and healther without the greys all over, specifically on my face (beard).

I've tried to pivot to another look where I shave my beard much shorter, but this in turn just doesn't look very good either as I come off looking scruffy, like a young kid with a dirty face. On top of that I have literally had to use the trimmer almost everyday to maintain the short beard look which isn't fun at all.

So I guess I'm just curious, for those of you who just don't look good and can't pull off the grey look, how did you deal with it and what if anything did you do?