Thanks for playing!
We're aware of most of the issues you mentioned and agree with you. Hopefully, we'll be able to fix them soon. I'll skip those points below.
I couldn't find a better cost for dirt roads. Some games make them free (aside from construction time), but I found that too generous for this game.
Work zones are useful when you want to avoid chopping down all the trees in an area and give them a chance to regrow. This way, you can also make sure some forest is preserved for resources other than wood (resin, seeds). The work zone ranges of some other buildings could be increased though.
You can actually click on secondary tooltip links (Crusader Kings 3 style). You just have to wait a bit for the first tooltip to lock in to prevent accidental nesting. CK3 has some additional options for this that we haven't implemented yet.