Merchant Republics and Goods Produced

[DarkEye5]

Merchant Republics has in general been the target of a lot of criticism and a general lack of love from the developers over some time now. I often defend the mechanics due to the Prevalence of Merchant Republics (there aren't that many of them on the map) as well as a unique tall, trade-focused playstyle. One of the better (albeit more hidden) bonus was a bonus to goods produced equal to half your relative trade power (i.e. if you control 50% of the trade in a node, every province in that node gains a +25% increase in goods produced).

This was great for you as a Merchant Republic due to three reason:

1. You gain a bonus to Goods Produced just by doing what you already wants to be doing (incrasing your trade).
2. You increase the overall Trade Value in places where you already are in a position to benefit from it.
3. It can be used as a bargaining chip with your neighbors.

However by accident I recently discovered that this hidden bonus has been nerfed considerably, insofar as it doesn't affect your production anymore, only the production of your neighbors. This removes the first - and by far the best - of these bonuses. Sure, you still get increased Trade Value but it seems strange to actively decrease the Trade Value by owning more lands each Trade Node. I also highly doubt the AI takes the loss of production income into consideration when planning if they want your land, so the bargaining aspect is only useful in Multiplayer, where it's usefulness in diminished by the opaqueness of the entire mechanic.

It's not mentioned in any changelogs (that I could find) but it seems to be a change in 1.30 according to the forums (mentioned here, here and here) as well as Reddit (mentioned here and here).

Honestly, this is a bit of a problem - or at least a shame. Firstly due to the lack of communication about this. Of course it could just be forgetfulness on the developers behalf, but this mechanic is one of the mechanics brought up in order to justify the viability of Merchant Republics. The fact that it hasn't been mentioned in the DDs or the changelogs means that we had no idea it happened and we have no idea as to why this change was implemented, needed or if anything replaced it nor did we have the opportunity to give inputs to these questions.
And secondly it feels a bit like kicking someone who's already down. Merchant Republics are by no means overpowered, quite the opposite, their viability are continuously questioned, their mechanics (such as Trade Cities) are quite unpolished and lackluster and they haven't gotten much attention for a long time (though going from a hardcoded limit on states to changes in Governing Capacity was good news).

TL;DR: Bring back the old bonus to Goods Produced to Merchant Republics or at least replace it with something similar.
(I considered making this in the "Suggestions"-forum but I'm not sure if this is an actual suggestion or more of a rant. So I'll just post it here)