Unfortunately, yes.
Not sure I understand this reluctance. Sure you feel cool and good when you first manage to properly time a transition from Tradition to Rationalism, but it had so many issues. It's not like you ever could do much of anything interesting with the trees because of how limited you were in choice. The finisher for Order and Autocracy might as well have read "Why are you still playing the game already?". Also the value of the other trees was often trumped by the fact that whatever was better long term was always better because that 1 choice literally locked you out of other later ones.
From what I could see and have read/heard, they have dropped the penalty per city and reduced the cost of later game policies (early game is relatively same~ish).
Probably a couple of reasons. First, I do not believe in an abundance of bonuses. Second, I do not believe in watering down the choices we make. This may be an extreme example but previously, you had to make a hard choice in choosing Tradition or Liberty (or Honor for some) and Piety or Rationalism. With all of the extra policies we're going to get, now you can go super-size and get all of them! No need to make any more hard choices because another policy is just around the corner. Therefore, the only choice left would be the Ideology. Like I said, a bit hyperbolic but it is a trend in the wrong direction, just like what they did with Happiness and certain resources (i.e., given us an abundance that the choosing or acquiring is essentially removed from the strategy game).
Actually, you get the most possible different strategies if you can choose~1/2 of the policy trees. (So~4 trees... And 1 ideology) ...some of those may be similar or bad strategies, but that is a balance issue... Ie if 5 trees is "enough" for you, that means the other 5 are UP.. Or the first5 are OP
So increasing it from 2.5 total trees out of 10 to about 4.5 (3.5 policy, 1 ideology) out of 15 (Each ideology is~2 trees worth of options) is reasonable.
Probably a couple of reasons. First, I do not believe in an abundance of bonuses. Second, I do not believe in watering down the choices we make. This may be an extreme example but previously, you had to make a hard choice in choosing Tradition or Liberty (or Honor for some) and Piety or Rationalism. With all of the extra policies we're going to get, now you can go super-size and get all of them! No need to make any more hard choices because another policy is just around the corner. Therefore, the only choice left would be the Ideology. Like I said, a bit hyperbolic but it is a trend in the wrong direction, just like what they did with Happiness and certain resources (i.e., given us an abundance that the choosing or acquiring is essentially removed from the strategy game).