This is exactly the reason. There's also plans to add badges to the PVP zones and add PVP exploration accolades, a thread asking for suggestions will go up soon.
But nobody wants to go to Rikti Crash Site, so why force us to with badges? It's not like it's Galaxy city where it got completely removed and it still has badges, that makes sense. Rikti War Zone >>IS<< Rikti Crash Site, just better designed, same with Faultline. So why put badges in Echo zones that are exactly the same zone? The PvP zones having exploration badgse makes logical sense, adding badges to echo zones where their only purpose is historical preservation makes no sense what so ever.
I have to agree. Standardizing zone badge counts is one thing, but creating whole zones that only exist to store exploration badges for "consistency" seems oxymoronic. Just remove badges in zones that are in excess of the standard count.