Some "brute force" tests are relatively quick and simple to carry out, like the idea that all the sites are at the same lat/long (seemed unlikely, but was easy to test), and each time we rule out possibilities. Obviously we'd all prefer for someone to come up with an elegant solution combining multiple details which just "makes sense" but until we do, anything we can rule out shrinks the problem space.
I realize that we have to make the best of things, and this is just inviting another...What would you have us do? but...
Even checking out specific lat/long given the tools we have in game, given the variability in graphical display quality, general bugginess...we could still be spot on in an assumption do everything as humanly right as possible, and still very easily miss the damned things, so our confidence level in ruling out any variable has got to be very low...yes, that is frustration, yes it is very negative, but it is also the very reality we are facing in this right now.
In my application of Occam's Razor to this...I am finding it easier to believe that the devs have placed a story in the game that they are telling chapter by chapter through missions and community goals, while creating the illusion of it being a solvable mystery, as opposed to expecting the players to manually search entire planets.