As an explorer, there isn't much you need anyway. FSD upgrade is nice of course. You could probably go from zero to rank 5 with say a dozen hours effort and then be back out exploring.
As an explorer myself, although perhaps only 50% of my time is spent out in the black, i've found that now i've done the Engineers pretty much fully, i can get a new ship and fully engineer it with little effort, as i now have quite a decent stockpile of most materials. Occasional frustration occurs when i run out of something tricky to get, it can take me an hour or two to get some replacements, but overall not too bad.
The main pain with Engineers is when you are just starting out, and there is a massive list of things you need to do. Unlock Engineers, get materials, rank up, etc. When you face that, and face the multiple layers of RNG to achieve some of it, yeah, that can be a real turn off. But once you are through it, its worth it. At least if you spend a decent amount of time in the bubble.
Still, if you look at what areas Engineers are truly necessary for, only combat i would say it is really required. Yeah, you could say that anyone who plays in Open should also need to do it, regardless of activities, because you need to survive against random attacks from engineered ships... but that's always the choice whether to play in Open. If you are mining, trading, exploring, etc, then you don't really need Engineers, except to make life a little easier, especially in relation to FSD range.
Again, the multiple layers of RNG are a pain, not just with Engineers, and in post #8 i also presented some of my own ideas how FD could reduce the level of randomness.
