Pretty simple to test this. Use LBML to track your hit rate.
Do a few hundred drops with the TT finder searching enmatter (0.05 PED/drop) overlapping your drops as much as possible and see what your hit rate ends up at. Of course luck is a factor, but if you end up with something ridiculous like a 15% hit rate over 200 drops that may answer your question
The willingness to experiment with theories like this are what separate the casual miners from the hardcore IMO
There is something else that most miners do not take into account and that is an alternate source of income besides actual mining..... Skills
A player's hitrate may be higher than expected if you take into account "skill hits". I have been looking at something, thinking about it, then looking at it again... Then by complete accident, I met one of the mining greats, in the form of Strakkan...
He told me "there's a HOF under your feet", of course I did not believe him as my current mining sheet does not show any deposit within 188m of my current location. He was adamant and probes right at my feet. He got a hit, entmatter, size VI (He was amped obviously), he carried on mining and I carried on thinking... Just for shits and giggles, I thought, what is the closest resource to my coordinates. Turns out it was a size 6 entmatter, 188m away.
Here is the point that I am going to make, first off, and completely off topic, this thread is a treasure trove of actual and verified mining techniques, one should expect, if you are using an optimal setup, either a skill gain or hit on I would say 90% of the time.
Second point. My skills are no where near Strakkans. But I did notice that while I was using my sheet, the skillgains that I received shot up, when I attempt to probe on a location that the sheet suggests contains a high class of loot (anything above class 5). Anything below class 5, I pretty much hit the correct class of loot +- 1 loot level. The sheet that I have is not perfect, I have still to find the correct configuration and packingmania does not have the one that I want hence the +- 1 loot variance.
But it really does not matter as long as you can afford it, and at least get some sort of reward for playing, in either skills or actual loot then you are playing optimally.