Wow, some of you guys are awfully judgmental about what people do in a single-player game. I guess I'm a bad person because I went back to that game and replayed it again. It's kind of funny because the second time, I waited until much later in the game to explore the lair and was excited by a whopping 161 gold coins!
So I tried exploring lairs far from home. Ironically enough, I found a great merchant, and another scout got teleported to another continent. While over at the other continent, I discovered a priest of the Empyrean--woohoo, I can found a mid-game religion by turn 100 or so! Of course, my great merchant and his scout escort got eaten by a bear on the way home. Unbeknownst to my scout on the other continent, the Clan of Embers may have a truce with the barbarians but they cannot keep their allies civil, even to guests in their lands. Luckily, my priest made his way to the other coast in Svartalfar lands--where he quietly taught only a select few only to carry on the teachings of Empyrean after his natural passing for over 100 years before anybody was able to pick up his successor on that continent. By that time, the people in my lands were almost ready to learn about the Empyrean all by themselves!
And those are only the good results from my scouts. Makes for an interesting story, but it really seems if the best strategy is to explore far from home and then the good results aren't useful because you're too far from home, then perhaps lairs are just a waste of time--or perhaps all those dirty, lowlife "savescummers" should have their lives spared by the CivCops for trying to make use of a feature that produces mostly bad results.
I'm just saying, maybe this is something that should be looked at if you base your entire strategy on wiping out civilizations in the early game by exploring ruins near your enemy.
