Oh, certainly. It's just that if she went farther than Kirk, this would at the very least give new perspective to who Kirk was, how famous, how exceptional, so forth. Over-Kirking Kirk just strikes me as overkill.
All of this is well beyond the scope of DSC itself anyway. I'm delighted to see some of the "The Cage" characters again. And I'm also hoping we don't see all of them, for realism's sake. But dropping Number One from the mix would certainly be a bigger loss than dropping old Boyce or the rather irrelevant Tyler.
Timo Saloniemi
I don't think I'd describe pure exploration as 'Out-Kirking Kirk'. His legend typically seems built on his reputation as a combat commander, finding brilliant ways out of no-win scenarios, etc. There's no reason her mission need necessarily be comparable to his.
But I agree entirely about the second part.