Why? I find the journey via wormhole both amusing and fruitful. When a survey ship enters a wormhole it could end up traveling through another civ's territory, either immediately or during the trip back to your territory, allowing you to meet them earlier than you otherwise would. This is a benefit.

If you look at the zoomed in map, you can tell its a wormhole.  If it were gambling like GC2, the I have no problem.  It may be a good thing or a bad thing to hit one, but you shouldn't have to keep your ships on manual to make the decision.  I'd rather get the free frigates, colony ships, research, constructions, money, etc.  Besides I don't see why you need a survey module to even drive into a wormhole.

I wish wormholes could be exploited more than simply being a "penalty box on the far side of the map"

A.  when going through you discover new ways of warping space.
B.  They can be made permanent so you have a faster way to go to the far side of the map.

C.  some other random event is possibly triggered by them

Wormholes seem like they are only partially there...  they could really do a lot more with them.

I play on Immense (until larger maps are released!) so I find the wormhole business just fine.    It is expedient on large maps to get the intel on other empires;  plus, it is worthwhile (imo) to build several survey ships to keep harvesting the anomalies.   So one on a wild goose chase isn't that big a deal.   And all the way back it is mapping the galaxy.  Or, the choice might be to decommission and build another.

On a small map, come to think of it, the map info from a wormhole run is likely even more valuable.   The problem is the cost in not getting surveys done and the relative cost of building a replacement is higher.

Just my 2c.

This seems eminently reasonable.  And makes total sense for what the capabilities should be.