I agree with you on that point.
I think the collecting rocks/seeds/bugs part of TS3 is obnoxious. It just clutters game play in a completely unnecessary way. I would rather get real features - i.e. more careers, more objects, more animations, more skills, etc. - that actually enhance the game. The collections just seem like they were supposed to be part of another game. I already own games with these features, but the difference is, in those games, collection is a major part of the point of the game.

Sending my poor sims across town to pick up three ~unknown~ seeds is pointless.

That's a bit off topic, though.
So - I've now decided, if I have the spare time, I'm going to reinstall all of my TS2 shit and get the proper mods.
I sincerely doubt that will happen anytime soon, though.

I'm in a similar situation.
My hard drive needed to be replaced about two months ago, so I would have to reinstall The Sims 2 if I wanted to play it. Eh. As much as I do, I think I'm going to move on to The Sims 3 for the time being and hope it gets better. At least I still have TS2, just in case I do decide to go back. (And from the way things are shaping up, I just might.)

Ah, this!
I might be alone here, but I'm really not a fan of the cluttered look. Having a million fishbowls spread out over every available surface in my Sims' homes pisses me off to no end. If there was just one giant aquarium that held all the fish, that would be fantastic.

Also, a three-tile dining table that isn't all Art Nouveau or whatever that style is supposed to be.

Some object on residential lots that sims can use to WooHoo other than the bed. I don't care if it's couches or cars or even a bush as someone suggested earlier. I like a little variety. 

Other music instruments would be nice, but would you earn Guitar skill for using them? I'm not sure I'd go for that.

Oh, and sectional seats!

Bunkbeds, of course, for maximum spawn in minimum space.

Some flowers/bushes, because I think the ones that came with the game are all ugly. Not to mention some of the ground plants are freakishly huge in comparison to the Sims. Call me crazy, but I liked the little squares from TS2.

More styles of double bed, maybe one with the best stats but without that canopy. I just hate it for some reason; it never seems to look right to me.

Of course, the toddler floor blanket and the toddler mirror, too.

I used a clean neighborhood template and I didn't like it.  Maybe that was just because I actually like having townies.  I think I'm kind of alone here, though.

As for them being gone forever, you can always use the townie creator that is in debug mode if you desperately want townies.  That way, you can change sims into townies, too, but you probably already knew that.

You can use SimPe to change their names, and I think it's a relatively safe thing to do, too...

Pets will, in fact, starve if they've been completely trained to eat Sim food and there is none available.  If you want to see this in action, just plop the Crittur family down into one of your existing households.  The good news is, if you do manage to get them to eat Sim food, you can just scold them for it and then they'll eat the Pet food again.

Oh.
I just renamed the Household in SimPe, which made it easier for me to jot down which sims were in which social group.
If I changed the actual last name, that might make it awkward when I had a female sim change her last name to that of her Townie husband.

New Year's baby is an NPC that shows up at a New Year's Party.
They're talking about the babies and/or toddlers of their playable sims showing up on their outings.

Too long, I'd say.  Every "feature" seems to do something, although a good 60% of the time, it seems that something is very, very bad.

Wouldn't it be easier just to rename them Socialites, Techies, Jocks, Bohemians, and Gearheads?
Well, easier for the casual game-player who isn't really planning to do much with SimPe besides spy on genetics, relations, and the like.


EDIT: It seems like many of the sims don't look remotely like they belong within their social groups.  How frustrating.

Mine never disappear, but I don't have that many tombstones as it is.

Maybe try moving all the tombstones in the neighborhood to a cemetery lot, then send your sim there at night.  That should do the trick, although he might not see the exact ghost you wanted him to see.  Not a problem, if his want is the generic "See A Ghost", but it is if it's "See the Ghost of xxx".  Still, the latter doesn't happen that often, so I'm assuming that's not what you've got.  Re-reading through your post... maybe it is.

No one is forcing you to accept the outings.
Unless your game is actually forcing you.
In which case, there's something wrong.

Well, obviously, it would have to do something, otherwise it wouldn't exist.
It just doesn't seem like it does enough for it to be worthwhile, unless you desperately want/need to fill that want.

This might sound obvious, but are you sure she's not on the lot?  If it's a particularly big one, she might be stuck in a corner somewhere.
Right-click on her icon and see if it zooms you to her.

Note, she's not going to die.  Just for fun, I used debug mode to drag down the motives of a family's roommate and he went on "Errands", which made his Energy and Hunger bars go up.  Of course, she might not be able to do that if she is truly stuck, but she might just stop being your family's roommate.

Otherwise, if none of the other suggestions in this thread have worked, you might have to move your family out of the apartment and back in.

I'd suggest organizing your download folder to make solving problems like this easier.  If yours is already organized, then you're even better off, as it shouldn't be hard to find the hacks which aren't compatible.

As for the huggle interaction:  I'm fairly certain that sims can't interact with toddler age members of different households.  Of course, there is a "bug" where sims can bathe other households' toddlers, which is rather creepy.  Anyway, if you want to see the huggle interaction, have your sim have two children right after the other and don't grow the first one up from the baby stage.  That is, let it grow up naturally at 6:00PM.  Then, grow up the second baby as soon as possible.  Have fun; it's pretty cute.
Of course, you might get lucky and end up with twins, and then you don't have to exert effort.

I've noticed, although I wouldn't neccessarily live by this, that pet ghosts rarely scare.  Of course, all pets die of old age, because there is no other way for a pet to die.  I've also noticed that, when these ghosts do decide to scare, they rarely scare the sims that they liked.  Of course, that's just what I've observed, so it may only be true in the few instances that I've had this sort of situation in my game.

For example, my sim's cat just died of old age.  The cat scares my sim's new wife, who the cat had a low relationship with before it died.  The cat has been dead about three sim days, scared the wife twice, and never scared it's original owner who it had the "Mine" relationship with.

Sims scare more than pets, even if they did die of old age.  I've noticed that old age ghosts don't come out as often, as there are some nights where they're not out at all.  However, sims who died early come out every night, although they don't always manage to scare for whatever reason.  They also tend to reenact their own deaths, especially (or possibly only) if they died from electrocution or disease.

Starve a townie to death.  It'll be unhappy enough to scare your sims.
The cat probably lived a relatively content life, and it obviously died of old age.
Therefore, it's probably too happy, as miramis said, to scare your sims.
Kicking the tombstone might destroy it, I think, or it might be in the fears of one of your sims.
Your best bet is either continuing to wait, because ghost scares seem to happen most when you're not looking for them.
Or, of course, as I suggested: kill someone else.

Huh.  My bad, I was completely misinterpreting the word "Family".  Apparently, it didn't occur to me that "Family" meant just that.
I've got it now.
I was expecting to find a family name, not those instance numbers for the families.
I still think it's too much effort to figure it out, but I'm glad I actually know how to do so now.

I'm assuming you mean what comes up under "Household" in the SimBrowser, Heli.  In that case, it just tells you which sims are in the same Household.  It doesn't say anything about which specific social group they're in.  Is this all I'm going to find or did I misinterpret?

I figured that out shortly after I posted that, oops.
That's what I get for coming late to the AL party, here.

Except they don't, which is where the problem lies when the school bus doesn't show up.  I hadn't know about that function because, as I said, I just got AL, so I proceeded to freak out, slightly.  If the apartment I was playing didn't have a driveway, I probably would have done all sorts of stupid things trying to "fix" it, and failing.

I'm off topic here.  What I'm saying is: They don't autonomously go to school, which is what annoys me about this problem.

Are school buses coming for children living in your sims' apartment buildings or did I Eaxis fuck my game up?

She wasn't asking to make changes...
Besides, it is the "best" way, and probably the most reliable way to find it out.  Otherwise, you could be like me and just not care.
I can't even really find an advantage to socializing with only one society group, but that might just be because it's so cumbersome to single out individuals based on their alliance to a group.

It probably does something, it's just minor and worthless unless your sim rolls the want for it (which I've noticed that non-permaplat Knowledge elders seem to).

You wait until they anonymously decide to do one of those "Greet..." socials.
That's the only way to figure it out in game, other than some trial and error with "Greet..." socials to find out which the NPC prefers.
Their clothing can be an indicator, but it'll probably take some observing to figure out which clothing styles fit with which social.
To be honest, there doesn't seem to be much of a gain if you focus on sims you think are in one social group versus socializing with all sims in all groups.  You still get approximately the same amount of "bonuses" or whathaveyou.

Or, of course, you could use SimPe.
 

According to thefreedictionary, "true bug n. - A wingless or four-winged insect of the order Hemiptera, especially of the suborder Heteroptera, including the bedbug, louse, and chinch bug, having mouthparts adapted for piercing and sucking."
If we're not being completely technical, though, spiders, centipedes, and millipedes are often referred to as bugs.


Thanks for posting that list of traits. 

Has anyone actually managed to get a Perma-Plat sim since FreeTime?