Well I have a theory on why the chutes explode in AH. Note that in the current AH damage model, every AC has different parts that can be destroyed, with different effects. I.E., you lose an "Aileron", the part disappears and your plane's rollrate suffers. If the "Pilot" is damaged, you get the blackout effect, but if the "Pilot" is destroyed, the plane explodes.
Now the chute may be an object with only one component to accumulate damage- the very soft "Pilot". And when this component is destroyed, the chute explodes, just like an aircraft does. So HTC may not be purposefully encouraging chute shooting by providing the "meatbomb" pyrotechnics display, rather it's just a result of the aircraft damage model coding shared by chutes. Since it is such a ridiculous in-game effect, I am hoping they add some alternative damage effect for killed chutes.
I'm sure it shouldn't be a real high priority, just wondering if there would be any plans to address it at some point. If no one strafed chutes, it wouldn't even be an issue. But they do, and it did happen in real life, too. I'd prefer something realistic, but unspectacular.