There was an encounter in my most recent D&D 4e adventure in which the players fought several (16) minion skeletons. Because all of the skeletons were minions, the encounter was not difficult, but it was also not very interesting. Resolving the actions of all 16 skeletons felt like more of a slog than a tense, exciting fight, because for every single skeleton I had to decide who to attack, then roll for attack, then apply damage, which got tedious quickly. This problem also occurs in fights without minions, that fights are more numerical than dramatic, but it is most prominent in fights with lots of minions or only minions, because in those cases there are simply more enemies to handle.
What techniques can I use to make fights (especially fights with lots of monsters, such as fights against minions), an interesting battle rather than just a game of numbers?