"Servers would moderate themselves" I agree, but Mojang has their own EULA and Community guidelines, and not all server moderators account for it. It's their game, so it's their right and responsibility to enforce the rule they've had. Also, some servers may not have a very good moderation system (if any), so it might be able to help them if they can't handle something. It would be nice if they figured out a system that wouldn't conflict with servers' current moderation systems, though. Maybe server mods would first check it, and then report those text to mojang if necessary?
I would argue against what you said about slowly taking away our freedom in how we play, because the community guidelines have always existed, and has always been strict, they just decided to enforce it more. Also the concept of chat reporting shouldn't affect how you play (it would rather improve it), cause they just try to make sure that minimum people are harassing or making people uncomfortable. Do keep in mind that the community is almost constantly getting larger, and there typically are pretty young kids who join in that are vulnerable to this.
Disabling chat is not always the best option, but they also added a way to block players so you don't see their messages, and I think that that's pretty effective. But I think it'd be better to minimize the amount we would need to use that tool, so they wouldn't be in danger in the first place.
So personally, I wouldn't say that chat reporting itself is unnecessary for minecraft, but it definitely needs some improvement so it's as fair as possible
