Wow, do you equip most of your ships with jump drive? I tend to only explore as fast as I can build gates.
I don't know about the op here, but most of my survey work is definitly done by jump drive equipped squadrons. Lately it has been a larger jump ship with a extra fuel, a flag bridge and the best possilble commercial sensors backed up by several smaller ships that do the actual survey work for a system. I like to have at least a two system deep area around my inhabited systems that has been surveyed. This way if something pokes its head in I have a chance to see them and prepare.
My colonies do tend to be linked by Jump Gates, just not my surveyed region.
Brian