Character build depends a lot on play style. I'm personally willing to use alpha cores, and generally don't run d-mod ships mid to late game, so I've got a fairly different skill distribution. I admit the alpha cores induce AI inspection fleets (but those can bribed) and Pather interest, but I consider both of those manageable and I figure I'm going to run into Pather interest with heavy industry + other stuff anyways.
Currently my level 50 character in a Nexerelin modded run has the following personal skills:
Combat Endurance 3, Ordnance Expertise 3, Target Analysis 3, Defense Systems 3, Advanced Countermeasures 3, Evasive Action 1, Helmsmanship 2, Gunnery Implants 3, Power Grid Modulation 3.
That still leaves enough for fleet skills of Officer Management 3, Fleet Logistics 3, Coordinated Maneuvers 3, Fighter Doctrine 3, Electronic Warfare 1, Loadout Design 3, and Navigation 3.
That makes my personal character better than an level 20 officer (equivalent to 8 skills at 3 instead of 7). I don't run d-mods in my endgame fleet, so the Industry fleet skills aren't useful to me. As far as I can tell, I'm really just missing EW 3 and Command and Control 3 as things which could boost my fleet as a whole. 50% more effective ground combat just means more credits spent on marines when I get around to that, so I skip planetary operations. Mid-late thats not a problem I find. I suppose if I were raiding early game planetary operations might make sense, but I tend to play nice early game.
My combat fleet is currently fast battlecruisers (Odysseys, Conquests) and cruisers (Herons, Apogees, Eagles), so between navigation and base speed I'm running at burn 9 (18 sustained) which feels fast enough for my purposes. If I do exploring, I just run a few Apogees (say 3), maybe some Shepherds, and a Dram or two. If I'm just looking for rare salvage (Nanoforges/Syncrotrons, blueprints), you don't need capital class cargo capacity.
If you're doing exploration for bulk goods to sell for credits, I guess I don't see that as particularly efficient? I've generally made more profit by popping in and of the core worlds to get exploration missions for credits (or even bring along some transplutonics to build makeshift comm relays to pick up more missions while out in the black - gives me something to do with all the excess metal and machinery I pick up).
On my spacer iron man run that worked, I just did pure exploring early on, but was just running scans for the credits and opening up only the good stuff (Research stations, mining stations, caches, Survey ships, and looking for ruins on planets) when I saw them. I basically did that with like a single combat fit Apogee, maybe 4 or 5 shepherds, and a dram. I did take the sensors skill in that game. +25% sensor range is good for searching, and neutrino detector is handy for the stuff out near the edges of the system, especially on Iron man when you're taking every explore mission.