This is actually so well balanced by now, that I struggle what ship to use: My CMK4 in which I perform better in SSD mining, while my python is better for Laser mining. Also: If you go for laser mining, try blindly shooting at rocks and look at the percentage if and how much Tritium is displayed. Then fire a prospector drone if it looks promising. Ratios above 20% are no rarity in Tritium hotspots and don't require any glowing!
And yet, I'm more effective in my CMk4 with focus on SSD. It's also more fun and more variable: every once in a while I like to crack open a core of one of the more valuable minerals when I stumble upon one. I guess I'm 50% explorer and 50% miner. The latter wants to make some coin once I arrive in the bubble. This goes at the expense of my general galactic movement pace, of course.

The smaller cargo space is more than compensated by the fact that my carrier is parked close to the ring where I'm mining. In about 2 minutes I'm usually docked and it's only the gravity why it's not even faster. The CMk4 is (one of?) the slowest small ship in the game, and yet extremely nimble: In FA Off you can literally wrap it around a rock!
Interesting what you said about the color of the hotspot rings. I've never read about it on the forums but already suspecting this for some days now. My current believing is that it boils down to an indicator of density of the rock distribution which then in return results in a higher possibility of the more interesting glowing ones (for anything else but laser mining who don't require this).