The Mandalay is a Multi-role ship masquerading as an Explorer. Change my mind.

Though it's certainly optimized for exploration, there's so much more it can do:

• Bubble Taxi
• General mission runner.
• Light, fast trader.
• Stealth saboteur.
• Nimble PvE combat (will have video of succeeding in High Intensity CZ to share soon). UPDATE: Here's video of the Mandalay just goofing around with Pulse Lasers and a half-engineered build taking on SpecOps in a Conflict Zone. Here's a more polished and fully-engineered combat build on EDSY.
• Anti-Xeno (not optimal compared to the meta ships, but better than many alternatives).

It's exploration focus was a marketing ploy to sell it to those who spend inordinate amounts of time in the Black, married to a single ship for weeks, months, and even years (and no doubt whatsoever it will do very well in an exploration role).

But with the announcement of Colonization coming to E:D, they needed a multi-role ship that is at home out in the Black. A ship that wouldn't leave owners wanting as humanity starts to make its first tentative foray into Deep Space with new colonies.

I believe the Mandalay IS that ship.

A self-sufficient vessel that can do it all (or almost, anyways) despite long stints between putting into port, yet still capable of supporting the expansion effort. It just does so much, so well across the board, it doesn't fit exclusively into the pigeon-hole of "Explorer".