I can see engineers needing that special rare something for certain upgrades - like the scan data from high waking ships. However, the one thing that they should not be asking for are basic elements that can be bought relatively cheaply. Nickel, iron, yttrium, tin, arsenic - why the hell are the engineers asking me to get these basic things? I can pretty much legally order almost everything that I am forced to collect using the SRV.
on that subject, why even need the data at all? To me that makes less sense than the basic elements.
if I want to tweak, tune, or calibrate some engineering equipment that needs data, say the tuning frequency or specifc wave pattern, why does customer #1014 need to bring the same data when the engineer already has it? Is file copying a lost technology in ED 3301?
data is only rare once - when you don't have a copy of it.