Due to the way gathering works and hitting a higher node gives you more SP while a node more suitably ranked gives you no bonus, the 40+ ranks are painfully slow. This is because grade 6 is not in the game yet and there is no option to hit higher nodes. I can only imagine how bad the high 40s must be.

Either hitting nodes your own rank should give SP or we need grade 6 so that you can gain more SP if you want to. I mean, fishing has grades up to 10 and I've heard rumours of grade 20 nodes! This high wouldn't work with mining or botany but 6 would be easily hittable in the 40s.

I imagine the development team have more important things right now than add a 6th grade so the easier solution is to increase SP for being on the current grade. Current defined as grade at which you get the scanner tool until you get the next one. I wouldn't like to see node SP increase over all but I'd like to see the minimum SP gained not drop below 150 for a suitably ranked grade. Something like that.