Hi guys, I've just found this thread.
Yeah, VD is great for its scale capability, but as Redrobes demonstrated, it doesn't make much sense to map more than a couple of light-seconds. Once your planets vanish to dots, there's nothing left to map! After this, you just use a false-scale hex map to show star/planet locations.

Lightspeed has other problems attached from a scientific angle. Travelling that fast raises all sorts of nasties around time-dilation. That's why Sci-fi writers invented warp/hyper/jump drive. It soothes the headaches.