Abandonning a "Return for reward" mission leads to its failure and penalty

[Ozone]

I have a mission which asks to return to get the reward, but the mission is very far away so I wanted to abandon it (because the game keeps reminding me HEY you got a reward waiting!)

Sadly, if I abandon the mission, I get a -4 reputation penalty for failing the mission.
Sounds unfair since it was completed and the data transmitted.

Overall, I'm not fond of these missions which asks you to return to the station for the reward, since jump fuel is so expensive, it's often not worth it.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Abandoning any mission will result in a penalty.

There are missions that require you to travel through multiple clusters(and thus systems).
Usually one of the prime examples for this is Destroy Pirate/Slaver base.
Where you also get a usually very weak military faction ship whom you also have to take care of.(Not let them suffocate due to lack of O2, they should have enough energium, hyperium etc.)

Depending on the mission the rewards can be meh or okayish.
However the true reward is actually raising your faction stance with them.
If the cluster where you get the reward is 2-3 away i would say go back for it.
Each crossing of the Hyperlane (each small and big circle) will trigger a chance for an encounter. (The big circles will have an almost 100% chance to trigger).
These encounters can be very beneficial in regards to resources, crew members or simply raising status with a different faction. They are also a good way to get rid of refugees, since you can meet any kind of faction here.
If it is further away, it might be worth it or not.
Generally if you are 5 or more clusters away, then if you jump back the system RESETS to its DEFAULT LIKE STATE. Why do i say DEFAULT LIKE?
Because if you destroyed there say 2 pirate ships now they both can be civilian ships(trade option) or they can be 1 pirate and 1 merchant federation ship. And even better, if you left one of your ships there as a derelict, it can now become a faction occupied ship as well.
The original derelicts will appear as derelicts again and the resources at asteroids can be mined again and the traders will have also similar or better wares than they used to.

It is not a bug i would say that the game forces you to turn back. As you always had the option to not accept or to abandon when you want.
What could be done to mitigate the issue though is, that the base that is "closer" to you should offer the reward. So in the mentioned Pirate/Slaver base destruction, if there is a military base that is ahead of you and closer than the one that originally gave you the mission should give you the reward.
(But i think it would raise another issue as military base stations have differing sizes. Some are just outpust 1by1 and others are full fledged destruction bases.)