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If I went through and did this, then I would be working on the following principles:

weapons which (fluffwise) rely on their area effect (EG frag grenades, frag missiles, mortars) will have a direct hit which only hits on a 6 - it's pure luck.

Weapons which rely on a powerful shot (EG demolisher cannon, battle cannon, plasma cannon) but which also happen to have an explosion by virtue of using a huge explosive shell or ball of plasma, will have a powerful single shot which hits on BS and a weaker blast.

Any weapon which used to be Ordnance (EG earthshaker, demolisher, etc) will have a high damage statistic. I think that certain, exceptionally powerful ones (looking at you demolisher) should do mortal wounds with the direct hit. it should kill whatever it hits, and hurt everything nearby.

This way you get the engaging aspect of "might get a direct hit with a frag grenade and have a higher chance of hurting a marine", whilst keeping the actual purpose of a frag grenade, which is to do an area of damage. I was thinking of a frag grenades direct hit to be S4 AP-1 (slightly better than a bolter) and the explosion to be S3 AP-.

By reducing the strength of explosions, we can increase the hit rate - where people are suggesting a S4 blast with a max of 3 hits, if you want anti-horde you can have a S3 blast with a max of 5 hits.

so, a battlecannon:

direct hit Heavy 1 S8 AP-4 Dam D6
Blast: Blast 6 S6 AP-2 Dam 1

shooting a tank: 1 shot at S8 and 1 shot at S6

shooting a tactical squad with 3 guys left: 1 shot at S8 and 3 at S6

shooting a horde of 30 models: 1 shot at S8 and 6 at S6.

I just really want to get the chance of scoring a direct hit with an explosive, and of it being more potent than the surrounding blast.