I don't see how chopping is overpowered, you still have to build everything else, so they are not making you ignore other parts of the game.In early game, use your builders to chop forests/rainforests actively to complete districts. Its even better to remove forest instead of improving quarry/building mine, as you get so much production immediately.
Yesterday played as England on maximum speed, prioritized chopping and rushing districts. As result, had 18-19 trade routes (commertial + harbor districts), 2 ancampements, 2 campuses and 3-4 production zones. At turn 63. 10 cities found + 1 Russian CapitalNever used cheat with selling units for gold.
First chopping targets: Jungles with (2f-1p), forests not near rivers. Also, I didn't notice any penalty for chopping out of your borders.
I think right now chopping is a little bit overpowered and will be nerfed soon...
The only thing they are doing is making people buy more workers because now you need the charges for improvement and chopping.
You may think they are better than what they are because you were playing in online speed where yields from features don't have the same time to make up for not chopping. the slower the speed the worse chopping becomes.
I love the chopping mechanic, it adds another layer of strategy to the game like predicting where your districts will go and chopping before building them without losing turns to do it (sometimes I still lose turns because I didn't predict and had to wait the builder get to the tile and chop it before placing the district). And they add interesting mechanics like moving out of your border with builders being scouted by military to clear forests in tiles that you think you will never get.