I get the idea, I really do, but some of us donkeys just don't like to be driven, carrot or not!
I have level one engineering on my FSD and thrusters, and that's it because I don't do combat, I simply don't and never will, so some of the stuff required for higher level mods which comes from combat areas isn't coming my way ever.
While this may have been an issue when Engineers first launched, at this point there are so many ways to get mats that there are multiple options even if you don't want to do certain activities. First, you can level Farseer (Grade 3 dirty drives and Grade 5 FSD mods) by handing in exploration data. Second, you can get almost all the mats you need from degraded emissions, encoded emissions and combat aftermath USSs even if you don't engage in combat. You do need to drive the SRV to gather planetary mats, which can be tedious until you learn how to read the scanner and drive the SRV properly, but that's accessible to anyone without the need to engage in combat.
But, I have also often wondered why the engineers keep wasting all them modules they fail to engineer to the satisfaction of the pilots, they should sell them to us needy people, that way we could get second rate engineered mods while the keen guys keep their first rate engineered mods to themselves, and if we truly wanted first rate mods we could still get them by collecting mats and engineering them.So everybody is satisfied, the dedicated guys get to keep their top rate gear, us non-dedicated people get some engineered stuff even if it is second rate.
When you discard a mod you aren't throwing away the module. You're removing the modified parts but the module itself isn't discarded. It remains on the ship and is being reengineered with new parts/mateirals when you try another engineering roll. The idea here is that they're doing custom work to push ship components past their rated maximum specs. They aren't mass-produced because they require hacking/modifying/rebuilding certain parts on the ship, in many cases with significant negatives such as weight, heat buildup, integrity loss and so on. To use a car analogy, if you want to buy a Honda Civic from the dealer you can get all sorts of options with it from the factory but it will only ever be offered with standard components from the manufacturer. If you want a supercharger, custom paint work, an oversized spoiler, neon running lights and a dual exhaust you're going to have to go aftermarket for that. In many cases you'll need to be referred to someone who has the skills to do the work and has experience in a particular area. If you look at some of the custom work done on high-end cars the parts and labor alone can be more than the car itself. If the work isn't done properly they aren't going to use those parts and sell them to someone else, the parts will need to be fixed/rebuilt because they were modified for a specific purpose. In many cases the costs of modifying the car can be "lost" in the sense that the value of the car doesn't always go up in proportion to the money you put into the modifications, especially if they are very unique and have limited interest for most owners.
