As an elite explorer I've obviously spent a lot of time exploring...but I'm in two minds about this.
The change in ADS function is what's bothering me. I can see why making the ADS less miraculous in its instant reveal of all system bodies is logical and adds realism, and the manual system search adds another layer of game play.
But on a long exploration trip, when 90% of systems contain b***er all, this is going to become a major pain quite quickly.
The rest of it sounds great. If you left the system reveal as it is, but required a second level of searching to look for POIs or signal sources I'd feel better about it.
If you were to ask me how I'd improve exploration, I'd say - add more anomalies and other stuff to find. For instance, it would be soooo easy to add an ELW with night time lights, hence a pre-spacefaring civilisation. All kinds of objects could be floating around, comets you could land on for instance, mysterious space junk, rogue planets. Improve the bookmarking system... just colour coding would be a total no brainer, I can't see why this hasn't been done long ago. Maybe add a galactic map filter to show visited/first discovered systems. Allow explorers to name stuff they discover - within reason...perhaps with restrictions, like only elite explorers, or name their 1000th discovery etc. I'd also like to see another level of ownership to discoveries, establishing bases or colonies would be great, or just planting a flag.