If Refining did not add +2 to interest, I would use it more, at least in the game when I thought Pathers were not bugged like in 0.9a. Refining is nice to pair with Heavy Industry.
For fuel, Waystation stocks that up, and to produce enough to meet demand, I need synchrotron or alpha core in Fuel Production, and synchrotron adds +4 interest (for total of +6), which means fuel production is the only interest industry on the planet.
I played my game avoiding Pather cells at all costs (because I did not want to babysit even more than I need to). If there is a way to prevent cells from appearing regardless of interest, I would do it. I managed to do that once, but have no idea exactly how that happened. Could have been a bug.
Of course, if I played another game abusing cores left and right along with the Pathers bug, none of the tip-toeing around Pather cells would matter.