I've posted a number of ideas which i'd love to see implemented in game later for explorers. i agree that as it stands right now, exploration is just jump, honk, scan.. perhaps more scan if something else interesting then rinse repeat.. endlessly .. system after system and it takes a lot of patience.. decent music (or vids on youtube) and .. time.. lots of time. I'm 2 months out exploring now, have spoken to one or two pilots in all the time but never seen a single ship since.
I would love to see anomalies and mysteries in space, things you can really interact with and solve.. i would love for random spectacles to occur such as the death of a star or birth of one.. black hole destroying nearby entities etc.. things to see and marvel at.. and later planetary landings etc.. but right now, exploration is mundane, but very lovely all at the same time.
Exploration however has led to me watching many, many astronomy vids on youtube etc.. i've always been interested in space, the galaxy and the universe, and even some alternative views on how the universe was created and what lies BEYOND the universe, perhaps even at another level entirely a universe within a universe kind of stuff.. but this game has given the best i've seen for looking at the galaxy so far, and doubt it will be beaten for its content, so am looking forward to future patches now to see what else they can add to spruce up exploration to give it the return factor once you reach elite.