re: minimalist/lazy bronco, some of my lalaships finally reached R50 on just bronco.
I started 7 at the same time, of those, 5 are R40+ (2 R50), and 2 are stuck in R20s because rng cockblock @ S5 not unlocking S7.

http://puu.sh/lzBDU/eb5cd1c40b.jpg
http://puu.sh/lzCog/99b01acfdc.jpg

http://puu.sh/lzBF0/f3c724d10c.jpg
http://puu.sh/lzCcA/195e46553f.jpg
http://puu.sh/lzCmI/1839d26a64.jpg

Can see there the sectors unlocked on various broncos. It's possible to unlock all of the sectors that can be unlocked via visiting sectors without base surveillance requirements.
ie, S15 and S16 are the highest 2 sectors you can visit on just bronco, but it is possible to unlock S17 and S19 without 90 surveillance - you just can't visit them.

So far I've run ~40 ventures across 11 ships to S6, 13, 17 in the hopes of getting motes. Only S6 + 13 have panned out so far, and they were both on my non-bronco-actually-geared-out ships, so I'm wondering perhaps if there's a baseline retrieval stat req. Maybe it's just that rare. None of the bronco ships have gotten motes yet though.