Agreed. I've just gotten to the stage of putting down an independent lander on Mun, doing basic science (crew report, surface sample, EVA report), then taking off and docking back with my 'command module'. But I can't see any way in which to move the data from the lander into the command module. Thus I seem to need to bring the lander back with me. In the case of such docked ships and a 'mere' surface sample shouldn't you be able to transfer all the data/samples between the docked ships ?