Personally, I like some of your suggestions! I really like the idea of specific scientists asking for specific types of signals and building relationships with them. But I'll say this:
listening to some signals could cause special events to happen
I'm pretty sure this is already in the game! There's around ten signals that just acquiring them will cause an event to happen, and I think there's at least one signal (a drive you find somewhere in the world) where listening to it causes an event.
Awesome! I only found a few special signals before I started to notice only getting duplicates , alas, I am afraid of looking into the wiki. I think that would be the main potential advantage of interactions with the scientists- reducing reliance on the wiki. One of them could off-handedly mention in their letters that one of the persons who preceded the player would never find any interesting signals, alluding that they may have hidden a few of the spicier ones somewhere. Or the scientist could complain that they had requested a signal from a specific star multiple times, but would eighter get no reply, or would receive a signal from the wrong object.
