If this is a subject that sees such frequent discussion, that may be an indication of its merit.
Wrong. See Open vs. Solo threads or any thread suggesting we should be able to send/save/send/guard data from deep space exploration. Game play, pragmatism > merit.
People tend to dismiss a valid point for the purposes of playing the "grizzled veteran" card in order to pad their own ego. In fact, my main point is to give you salty-dogs more reason to brag. Let there be a way to differentiate the real explorers from the casual. Give credit to those who are willing to spend the time "in the black." I'm not saying that the ADS is a "win-all," but there is no denying the fact that it is an equalizer. It is one of those mechanics that decreases the skill gap, allowing someone to buy skill rather than earn it.
I know what it's like to spend time in open space, I'm not new to this game. There's no need to throw stats around, simply due to the fact that they don't mean anything in the context of this thread... The ADS throws all accomplishments into doubt and removes the credibility of rank.
Wrong again. Yes, it means something if you have scanned 10 systems or a thousand! In one you could have used parallax, in the other most likely ADS. And because that's precisely the subject, yes, it does matter. It's called experience.
See, in my mind, "Let me go and spend a week by squinting my eyes towards a black background to catch that spot that many a times won't be displayed by the game cause is too small to see, catch it and come back and make a whooping 100,000 cr profit!! Yay!!! Who wants to make tenfold more money by using the ADS when I am acquiring this superb skill?? pfft!..not me!" said no one. Then again, this might be a blatant assumption on my part and I apologize. I instead should have taken the OP as a living proof that said people, do in fact exist and enjoy the game just as much as I do. Because, after all this disdain against it, I imagine that's how you have been doing all your explorations, right?
But it takes one to spot one, and I once, just like you, thought the ADS could be a killer of exploration. The difference is that I also took into account other people experience, and came here and asked the question whether the ADS would kill my exploration experience, before reaching to conclusions of what I supposed was better.
That quickly and radically changed once I went out for my first 2,000 ly exploration. And that's why I whole hearty suggested you to go and do the same. Little I knew you had done it for months, parallaxing.
Another point to be made here is the tragedy of the code. The physics engine in this game is a work of art, but it is wasted art when it is not used to its fullest potential. The ADS allows to ignore the beautiful elegance of the galaxy and simply "grind-out" some exploration. Bring the beauty back to the code and let us use this universe that was so painstakingly and lovingly created for our enjoyment.
Now let's talk of balance for a second. Despite your own personal feelings on the matter, let's take an objective look at the numbers. If it is indeed true that you can earn 66% of the credits without needing to scan at all, then there really is a numerical mismatch. 66% of the money for 1% of the time and effort... It doesn't take a mathematician to spot the injustice there. And what about the first-exploration bonus? I understand that there are a ton of unexplored systems in this game, and an increase in credits may seem unbalanced, but imagine if it wasn't so easy to put your name on a planet anymore. If you want to be the casual explorer you can do so and make some money, but for those with the dedication and love of discovery, make their time worth the effort.
I know that there are many dedicated explorers out there. Every time I see a Reddit post with pictures of nebulae and black holes it makes me smile. No other game I have ever played has had such a high volume of players who have such passion. I'm not asking for greater rewards for those intrepid explorers, I want less rewards for those who don't have the fortitude, drive, and passion to truly earn the right to call themselves explorers.
In selectively quoting my first sentence, you missed the whole point of my second one in that post. Exploration needs many things fixed. But it also has to be consistent and make sense for GAMEPLAY, being this the keyword in any solution. I have said it before and will say it again here: we now can detect exo planets mass, composition and even temperature, thousands and thousand of light years away. In 1,300 years in the future, and BEING in the system already, ADS makes more sense than parallaxing or pretty much anything different, to be honest.
As fellow deep space and long time explorer Pete mentioned above, the skills developed by ADS are different. You learn to listen to planets...to spot terraformables from what not, water worlds from ELP, and even routing your way in the system. I am not sure what kind of skill are we expecting to have or trying to implement here when all what we are talking about is getting BASIC information on a planet -that's all, nothing more at least until landing update gets here.
Conclusion:
Any change to the current system will have to imply either: MORE time or MORE money for EXPLORATION that ultimately will be used for NOTHING at all -beyond explorer's reward- once sold in civilization.
As it is right now, we spent weeks and months, for a meager payout in comparison. Try any solution that implies more time, see how that goes....or just read other comments in this thread...you'll notice I am not alone opposing an ADS nerf.
The solution has to come in the hands of
PAYING MORE or GIVING EXPLORATION DATA MORE RELEVANCE IN THE BACKGROUND SIMULATION. 
