Hi,
The actually research lab is a fortune game to get better sub system items. It is sometimes a pain and timegrab to fly arround to 20-50 other station that get some blue or gold items like shieldbooster or weaponsystem to research them to a legendary item.
I know it can be fun to grind pirates a scrapyard for system items but often it is only a time grinding to maximate my ship with the best system.
My suggestion is an addon there you can upgrade a weapon or system item with the craft material like the weapon factory.
Example: I got a blue schieldbooster. I can use ammount of material like steelplates, generator and other stuff to get a gold Shieldbooster and can upgrade them to a rare and at last a legendary.
Or I can build them for many Money and craft material to create them. It would make the stations like more interresting as the suply dock.