What is it lacking in terms of exploration? I thought most of the exploratory benefits were in the visualizations, unless you mean the ability to ad-hoc connect to random databases and begin exploration (because you have to plan ahead to extract flat files from those sources)
I mean in terms of learning to use the exploratory/dashboarding functionality - it's fairly easy to do that with Tableau Public and public data sources (or your own if you are fine with the saved dashboards being accessible to the public).