I think that's the biggest exploration killer for me .. knowing there isn't much to find out or do in deep space.
Yes, Frontier have stated there is stuff players haven't found .. but I mean come on.. our galaxy covers about 39 million million cubic light years, and with nothing to fill the gap between these big finds Frontier has put in ... ehhh.. thanks, but no thanks.
One ELW looks like every other (why are all ELW's blue and green, btw?).
One dust bowl looks like every other.
There's nothing crazy to find.
Imagine you come across this:
And you can mine from it for incredibly rare, and incredibly valuable minerals.
Nope.
All planets are static and boring.
No asteroids hurtling through space that you should be able to land a probe on and tag, or mine or whatever.
Apart from holes and pulsars, no stellar phenomena to speak of..
Gamma-ray bursts,
Carbon detonation,
Superflare,
Superluminous supernova,
Tidal disruption events,
Plage (hell, there aren't even dynamic solar flares .. it seems there's just "hard coded" flare.. apart from the "hot animation" .. stars in ED look quite static).
Exploration in ED is about flying to the same systems over and over again, taking screen shots and then moving on.
That is mind-numbingly boring for me.
My longest jaunt was about 3000ly.
I self-destructed due to the immense boredom of having nothing to do.
/rant