When I jump from that game to EVE, it's very obvious to me that EVE is not for explore. You can do that of course, but you will be bored fairly quickly even compare to games like Freelancer.
In Freelancer, every "star system" that I jump into gives me a feeling of mysterious, until I cruise through every inch of the map, and memorized every cruise path and hidden "Wormhole"s.
In EVE, every system feel like the same. Yes, they have different layout, NPC and background, but still, it feel like repeat.
I believe EVE is more of a game of politics. A game about ruling, conquer and team work. Explore? not so much.
I don't know, maybe because the map of EVE is too big to provide saliency. In Freelancer, every map is manually made to service the background story, so each one is different in their own ways. Also, because the map is so small, you can make them vibrant easily.