The engineers in Colonia started off as relatively inexperienced compared to those in the bubbel & could achieve upgrades only to level 3. As people are using their services their experience is growing & are able to achieve better upgrades.
Do not confuse exploration with jump range, which is just a tool for explorers. Exploration is not dependent on engineering upgrades. Exploration is about getting out in the black to previously unvisited locations, then investigating and mapping them. If you engineer a ship up to 80ly jumps then that means you’re missing 79.9 ly worth of systems that may be unexplored, in effect you would be travelling quicker but exploring less. A lot of the Formidine Rift searching was done prior to the introduction of engineers; I visited Zurara, and explored the Pha Ain NO-X sector, in a basic 20-odd ly AspX, & had to do a fair bit of jumponium boosting and route retracing to get over some tricky bits.
Raxxla has been in-game since the beta, so also prior to engineers; therefore it can be found without any upgrades (if you look in the right place and in the right way).
U are right, and besides that, having a ship that can jump 70 or 80Ly but them even if u turn into economic jumps so u go to the max number of systems u can and only use that max jump range to get to and from the last point u explored to the bubble or somewhere else to turn in the data, u are left with a ship that turns so bad, moves slowly, that the time u lose when u are mapping a system, landing on a planet to explore and collect stuff, or stop for repairs cause u got too close to a star, but the system u got is the lowest, ence takes more time to do it, will in fact make u explore alot less than a person with a ship with a considerable less jump range, but that has decent speed, handling and cause of that can map a system or explore a planet alot quicker and therefore in the same time that ship that jumps less explores alot more and turns in alot more data than the other.
Its all about choices and balances, i tried alot of ships, some of them i used for exploration just cause it was something totally diferent from what ppl are normally using, just to be diferent, but atm i went back to the Krait Phantom, and im boosting just 43Ly jump range, (still room to improve via engenieering stuff), even with a FSD booster, yup, its low, but if u consider i got pratically all major systems A-rated (FSD, engines, shields, power distributor) and i am packing full AX gear for exploration and combat if need be, ull understand that choice, and with it i can actually do alot more than if i was on a jumpconda that basically could get me from A to B quick but them once there i couldnt do much cause i lacked the systems to do it and at the minimum sign of problems i would had to run the best i could. With the current ship and setup, i do all quick, efficient, and i dont have to run all the time, in some cases i can decide to fight and stand a chance of winning.
A side note that most ppl overlook, with a big ship like the anaconda u need to go to a station with the large landing pad, those normally means u need to fly further to find one and turn in the data, a medium and small ship does not have that issue and there is alot of remote stations that are ways off the bubble, and sometimes u basically negate that advantage in jump range when it comes to turning in data cause u can land a medium ship at a certain system but if u are in a large one u need to jump an aditional 20 or 30 Ly to get to a station, and in the end it all adds up.
As Raxxla goes, im keeping my eyes open, some of the clues putted here im always on the lookout for them, like systems with a gas giant with 8 moons, i always map that last one... Trying to unlock all the engenieers atm and upgrade my ship even further to get more out of the systems, and even inside the bubble the surprises keep coming, so many unmapped planets, moons, gas giants out there! Geeezzzz....