You are pretty unique in the CF universe.
People explore for the other reasons, they farm the points afterwards. Most Cfers have run Trothon or whatever 50 times, they've done the exploration, they know what there is to know to a very large degree. They farm it now sure, but they also know why and when to go there for other reasons. Knowing areas and actually knowing what is in them and why people would go there are very different things.

Edge point incentives tied to obs/exp are among the least of incentives to go to a new area.
Edges die with your char, area knowledge does not.
Knowing where and how to get gear and preps will enable me to kick the crap out of your char even if I have zero edges.
You take the approach to CF that people playing 10 years do. The problem is they have area knowledge that generally you won't have. That means you're unlikely to ever reach their level.

The general CF hierarchy of winning a PK to me goes like this. (ignoring race/class/cabal and such)
Skill>gear>preps>skill%s>edges
So if you think focusing on that bottom tier is meaningful because edges are permanent for your char I would suggest you're taking the wrong approach.
Why not prac everything once and spam up for extra hours, that way you get 50 extra pracs which means 50 more permanent HPs?
Because ultimately, it's not worth the time, because your char will die. The only things that are transferrable from char to char is knowledge, not stats/edges.

Focus on the other benefits of exploration if you actually want to improve, not getting an edge that adds 5% damage to call lightning or whatever.

Edges can be nice.
But they are very far from the end all be all of CF.
Delve into the other aspects just as much and you'll thank yourself later if you keep playing CF.