They definitely are aggressive, I've seen monsters destroy a giant cluster of 3 outposts at once and even a city owned by AI players, but yes, they don't always attack. To be fair, AI monsters don't always go after YOUR stuff either. I guess that's because monsters don't always behave logically? They might just wander around and leave, although if they are dead set on attacking, they'll rush straight for your city. The reason you are probably thinking this is because the AI doesn't clear monsters very well currently, so it leaves a ton of them hanging around, only one or two of which might be aggressive (but you don't notice because of all the other ones just hanging around). Where as, if you clear everything out (like a player would do), the aggressive one is always clear as day.
As for the chasing pioneer thing, when the pioneer "builds" the city, the monster see it as being destroyed, and it needs to find something else to do... perhaps it doesn't think it should attack a city with militia defenders? *shrugs*
Neutral monster are aggressive to AI players, but nowhere as aggressive as they are to players. I have game which I have place an outpost next to a monster nest. Within 100 turns, it was destroyed. The same scenario by AI players, 300 turns later, their are still standing next to the nest. I notice monsters go after AI player's resources rather than the outpost. Also I have starting to treat neutral monsters as a separate fraction that allied with all AI players, and bonus when they destroy AI players stuffs.
I was ranting earlier because I got a chance to cast Shadow World spell, which summons demons into the world. I feel that it is a neat spell, but with neutral monster doing almost nothing, I do not know the purpose of the spell. My idea was to bring destruction to nearby AI cities, but it looks like it is to use for champion xp farming now.