Samus doesn’t usually need a vehicle other than her ship, but since her ship isn’t available, this is a good runner-up.
The game is still more or less railroading us through, but also, there’s a bare minimum set of things Samus needs before they can start opening the game up. I like that they’re at least giving us time to learn each thing! The 2D Metroid games barely afford you any time at all with new things, but also, they’re shorter games. It’s a tradeoff that the developer has to choose between. Since most players of Metroid Prime games expect to spend at least half the game time reading (or at least, that’s how I play), I appreciate the gameplay being a little longer as a balance. Not that I don’t appreciate all the lore they shove in! Also, it tells me enemy weaknesses, so it’s generally a good idea to read at least some of it.
I find it interesting that the Lamorn decided to stop manufacturing things instead of expanding outwards (that is, finding raw materials among other planets), but the evidence we have suggests this planet doesn’t actually fit in normal spacetime. If leaving the planet is simply not an available option, then it certainly makes sense to stop the manufacturing. Clearly, however, they never stopped making more Vi-O-La, so they didn’t totally abandon their factories. They probably just started recycling a lot more.