I just played a poland game with liberty. I had jungle start with three bananas. My pantheon was sun god.
I left jungle bananas alone, in the beginning. And I was conservative about not chopping more jungle than necessary (not even all riverside jungle,). I had lots of jungle banana and also normal a few normal wheat tiles in the mix as well.
For sure, regular flatland jungle makes for a great trade post tile. You support a citizen on that tile, while also making good bit of science and necessary gold. (in wide empire I feel like I want to take advantage of working good tiles, for more gold than otherwise possible for tall empires etc...)
Later on, at fertilizer I decided to chop those banana jungles just in order to get more food out of my tiles. Because I was Poland, I had full rationalism, and order with worker facilities and 5-year plan.
I really wanted to work those juicy mines and quarrys and also work all my scientists (+5 science is more than that university bonus for jungle, after all)
Higher growth eventually gives you more versatility. You can assign citizens and specialists more.
I also had somewhat overlapping tiles between my core cities. Therefore, I could still work full specialists in those cities, AS LONG AS I had the effective food in the capital.
At the very least, in lategame, I want to work: all the engineers, all the scientists. In all cities where I have specialist slots. Take advantage of those hard-earned-specialist slots, that's what I say...
On top of that, you're working guilds specialists for culture as long as necessary. The land needed more farms, so I simply built more farms and plantations.
On the other hand, you might or might not want to work all the merchant specialists. GMs are perhaps more valuable at the mid-game. When you need extra cash to upgrade quicly your army units. Otherwise GMs utility towards game winning is less, I feel.
So, you could try to leave about 4 jungles trade posts instead of working merchant specialists... You get more science, more food (?) and more gold out of working jungle trade post vs merchant. I actualy had full commerce and full ratoinalism, as Poland LOL. Together with 5 order policies, and patronage opener, plus full liberty at beginning.
Unless you're freedom and want to have better happiness etc... Then you oftentimes run specialists as you are able to.