Hacking was viewed as too powerful. I think the nerfing of hacking went overboard, but I understand the sentiment. It's on my list of things to fix but I have a lot of things that are higher priority.
The gameplay solution in general is to have multiple safehouses. The following setup works very well (especially if you have a police sleeper):
1. The real safehouse, where none of your high-heat liberals spends any time. I usually like to keep my founder (if my founder has little heat, which xe usually doesn't if my strategy relies on thievery, secret missions, seduction, etc.) here.
2. My main heated safehouse, where my high-heat liberals spend most of their time. This place gets raided periodically and I use my sleeper to dodge the attacks.
3. My alternate heated safehouse, where my high-heat liberals hide while the police are raiding my #2 safehouse.
Usually my #1 is an upgradeable safehouse with a printing press, #2 is a cheap apartment, and #3 is the homeless shelter. If I'm really rolling in cash I can switch #s 1 and 2, since the cost of reinstalling the printing press no longer hurts so much. However, upgradeable safehouses with heat have to be defended against all comers except the cops, because you don't want to be caught unprepared by the CCS because they will take your safehouse entirely and not give it back.