In my experience the negative aspects of the discord community rarely go past being abrupt and probably a little bit rude, which is good. Whats bad is as you say- a dissenting opinion- usually attracts that attitude nearly instantly and from lots of angles, hence the dogpile.
Ive had a few thoughts that set people off, and I've seen others get it much worse, typically without any kind of explanation as to why beyond "nope, thats stupid" especially on more complicated topics which really isn't healthy. Honestly its pretty silly to not expect someone to be a little defensive or just give up if 5+ people gang up on them in the first place. A lot of the time I will hesitate to speak my mind because I simply don't feel like dealing with the fallout if it occurs.
I'm sure I'll be told that this isn't how it is, but regardless of the "baseline" most times people have a dissenting idea they get lit up from all sides, and I've been here a long time to see it happen enough that its hard to forget.
Just to keep this on topic and more directly answer Zelnik, I think the idea is that you're not supposed to actually pursue the exploration ships directly, and more just "get lucky" every now and then. Retry's point that its always a net positive is true, but I think missing the real criticism that if you want THOSE ships in particular, there is no recourse for getting them. Every other unique type of ship has some kind of safety net, be it IBBs or HVBs or quests, you can get them somehow as long as you put in the time or deal with the consequences. If your goal is those ships, it is a casino game in which you mostly lose after a ton of waiting, I dont see how thats up for debate. You can say that isn't how you're supposed to play the game, but thats kind of the point of criticism in the first place. Personally I despise hard RNG, and I wish I could pay somehow to at least up my chances or something and have some actual decision making and interaction with the game beyond a dice roll, but its beyond the scope of the mod.
Zelnik is probably upset because your entire post could be summed up as "that isn't the design direction" which Nia already said, and Zelnik even already said he was perfectly okay with. You're arguing about different things.