It does become repetitive, but the need to search for polonium, etc adds an element of "fog of war" to your progress which is otherwise totally missing in ED. Sadly that element is much reduced from what we had when we first got jumponium which, for me, was the most interesting period of exploration. Knowing the available mats from scanning makes it too much of a certainty that you can keep finding the needed ones forever.
There's certainly an interesting pattern to added exploration features, that makes a fair bit of sense from a narrative point of view.
Narratively, before and on DWE, people had to do everything manually. When explorers had trilaterated enough reference stars, it was possible to add this capability to ship computers, and automatically locate systems on visiting them.
Additional data collected by rock rats through DWE and CNE allowed a statistical model of minerals to be made up, and added to the Detailed Surface Scanner.
More recently, extended trilateration of systems and location of neutron stars will shortly allow major advances in long-range route plotting.
We get - as a community - these technological advances after earning them by collecting and analysing the raw data first.
...
I quite like the pattern (whether it's deliberate on Frontier's part or not) - it's more subtle than a formal CG, and more player-led than the "mystery over here" signposts of the aliens plot.
But... the overall consequence, of course, is that exploration gets more automated, and (even) easier to do alone and unsupported. Whether that's a good thing or not is a matter of opinion - unfortunately the addition of new features which can be collectively analysed in that way hasn't kept pace with the 'solving' of them.
