I really like the uConsole hardware but I’m convinced that ClockworkPi is not a software company. The fixes for the charging speed come from knowledgable users and developers in the community, not from ClockworkPi themselves. For charging, I use and recommend Trisweb’s settings from this thread.
There isn’t a charging light enabled in the standard firmware while the power is off, but Yatli wrote a driver that causes it to blink the power light on the DevTerm. Something similar could work on the uConsole, but what you are seeing is the default behaviour. Your device isn’t broken.
There’s a chip on the mainboard called an AXP228 which handles charging. My layperson’s understanding is that the driver on the uConsole tells it how much current it’s allowed to draw, and it remembers that number until it’s told something different. I haven’t tested it extensively but it seems like my device charges just as quickly while powered off.
Anyway, welcome to the community! This is very much a DIY linux handheld, so if something bugs you can either fix it yourself or hope it bugs a community-minded developer. There are a few people here working on alternate distros, which might end up being less janky.