Given the scale of the play zone and the ambitions of some factions, expansion pressures and territory scuffles could cause abandoned stations naturally, especially once the warp gate system is developed and implemented, I could see stations being mostly abandoned as new hyperlanes are set up that bypass an old route and drain away most of the lifeblood trade that keeps it populated. Additionally, the wreckage despawn mechanic removes a lot of potential to stumble across ship graveyards, but mining accidents and botched ambushes that kill everyone off but leave a functional ship behind that won't trigger the despawn could create a rare few nice little nuggets of exploration. Even scrappers stripping everything except the valkite beams aren't always going to get everything and once large industry gets up to speed you can expect many to take parts they want or need instead of completely scouring wrecks that manage to stick around.
Our idea of exploration from earlier ages was mostly people walking through lands populated by other peoples that weren't seen as entirely civilised or had seen previous ages come and go, exploration there was finding things other people had left behind. Given that there're no Precusor aliens or ancient civilisations, it's a lot harder to create ruins on a blank canvas- most environmental exploration you can get up to before players start to populate the belt with derelict structures and ships is just... pretty scenery, fancy clouds, and interestingly shaped rocks- so we could ask the devs for more meat on nebula and some kind of dynamic space-weather in the belt and/or around it. Deep space isn't all that explorer-y, sorry.
ED: I wrote this suggestion thread after thinking about the issue:
Ship Graveyard Mechanics
