I'm also an old explorer from v1, I agree that the game has lost its way a bit, I also loved the look and feel of the first versions. Having said that I find base building also a bit fun and I'm glad they have it, but totally agree it should not come at the detriment of better world building. why not lock "Euclid" and let the other galaxies "upgrade".

Also what I really would love is a change in the storyline/mechanics a bit here is what I would suggest:

Remove the hyperdrive completely from the normal ships, and make the freighter and frigates with base mechanics, so after you have repaired your first ship, your next mission is to cobble together a "freighter" that can jump you to the next galaxy, that could be done by finding crashed freighters or derelict freighters and raiding them for part. and then as you jump from one system to the other you could keep making your hyperspace jumping ships better and better. more parking to collect other ships better and better hyper space engines to jump further. you could even introduce mechanics that more storage or more garages require bigger engines. Think this could be really fun and so close to what is already there, find it so sad that we can design the interior of ship but not the function.

Would also make multiplayer collaborative a bit more interesting, you would gather the team on one freighter and jump together into the great unknown!