Definitely. As-is, it's just an excuse for you to do more scavenging and crafting stuff. If they don't want you to be able to run out of fuel, then they shouldn't have a fuel system. Elite has one, but in Elite it's possible for you to run out of fuel in the middle of space, at which point you can either self-destruct or ask people online to help you (there's an actual group of players who specialize in this).
There was one instance in which I was able to land on an NPC's freighter and buy some gas from him which felt cool, but they probably wouldn't be able to make those ever-present in NMS. Maybe make a mechanic where you can send out a distress signal and an NPC might help your or try to rob you? Could definitely be cool with the multiplayer.
This is, again, how Elite does it -- you have to fly right up to a star and carefully get close enough to refuel off of it without frying your ship, it's a cheap customization part for when you're in uninhabited space, as every inhabited system just lets you gas up at space stations. Only stars of certain spectra can fuel your ship though, so you have to be careful if you're going to a system orbiting anything cooler than a red dwarf.
NMS doesn't actually have physical stars though so that wouldn't work.
