In itself, it's a good idea to take inspiration from what makes Civ VII better and add it to Humankind via mod.
But I think you can also do that without modifying Humankind so “brutally”. In other words, modding it so that it is no longer compatible with many other mods. The alternative I have in mind is to replace the fantasy leaders with historical ones, give them specific bonuses and limit the choice of culture you can choose per epoch depending on the leader/ethnicity. Of course, you would have to add a lot more cultures in order to have an appropriate selection per age. Fortunately, you could fall back on the work of other modders. There is certainly no shortage of culture mods for Humankind.