This is one such option for exploring that that isn't as heavy handed as grinding PQs, and it was sadly overlooked in MS2 as a system because of how dominant it was to simply dungeon/raid. The more chances their are for emergent gameplay between players through basic mechanics there are, the better in my humble opinion.

'Why implement something like this?' - Exploring Maple World is, and should continue to be, fun! And you shouldn't be limited to running into people based purely on where it is most optimal to hunt at a given time. Meaning even if you CC'd to try and grab the same chest on another channel, there was a distinct possibility that node wouldn't also be active in the same spot. Depending on how big the zone size, (Given it was an isometric game with verticality,) there were usually two to three on a given instance, and they were channel unique. Maplestory 2 had two kinds of treasure chests as a guide, which were brown and gold(with gold being the more difficult ones to find/replaced standard brown occasionally). Whatever the medal does is up to your discretion or interpretation, but a 'Treasure Hunter' style vibe. Then tie a medal to finding each of these unique nodes. Scatter nodes that are on Hidden Streets, in hard to reach/creative spots in the overworld or even Versal, or closed off by some kind of 'puzzle' that require solving and randomly place treasure chests there containing (a chance) to obtain something fun or useful to progression in some way. Briefly touched upon in the actual Discord chat, but an interesting concept for semi-rare/rare world and boss drops as well as general loot could be applied to this:

Pharaoh's treasure chest maplestory