Well, the first thing I build in the 2nd city is a worker. And yeah, they're pretty useless for a while, usually only able to build mines and chop down forests, but that's still handy. The thing to avoid is having to build a worker while being pressured to build militia or other defenses.
Downside of rushing settlers is making it even tougher than usual to compete for the early game wonders, if that's important to you. I used to go for Pyramids/Stonehenge pretty often, looking for great people and doubling up on the state religion/pagan temple bonuses. But after great people generation has been nerfed, and pagan benefits were made mutually exclusive with religion benefits (a good change!), I stopped caring. They're nice to haves, but not worth the pursuit, especially chasing a religion.
On the subject of early game wonders, I actually got Moai Statues recently. It was a funny situation: I misclicked and built the statues by accident, didn't notice until there was about 10 turns left, and then got it still before any AI civ completed it. In retrospect, a waste of 10 turns. I had no use for the hammers on water tiles and the great person generation is too slow to be worthwhile.
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