(I dunno - it's nice to have options, but you're missing out on two of the more fun things in the game IMHO)
Im pro Thargoid

so its deliberate choice as opposed to ease.
I have shot one Meta Alloy barnacle once, for Felicity back in the day and I wish Id just visited the site and bought it. I have ignored all the other barnacles every single time. (if there is a hidden rank with the Thargs, which I doubt but if there is, Im on the right side of it I hope

)
I have multi-crewed scouts but not been given the recognition for it so put that down to a bad dream and it didnt happens, I havent killed any Tharg ever.
And I aint starting now just for a bobblehead, so I just bought them yeah.
Tharg skimmers I massacre, thats the weak point in my argument, but hoping they arent little Tharglets. Everything else I just study / watch / observe / experiment / run away / die quite often.
Sometimes I go to a barnacle site and its all just destroyed, every single barnacle, not one left for the creatures that made them. Its like looking at any ther human destruction, its pitiful and unnecessary...for what? Credits earned easily elsewhere.
If we'd studied the barnacles as long as shooting them we'd be able to grow our own by now.