Ooo,

Well I think I'm starting with a new hood then.

Time to gather up all that I need, thanks!!

Yeah, and unfortunately I use apartments in my hood... I've tried to fill them up but then learned that social townies will spawn. The game will not let me kill them.
And I just attached a Uni last week. 

Unfortunately, my daughter (who also plays in my hood) won't let me wipe it clean now, she's too attached to her sim 

So if I were to start with a clean template (and follow Jordi's tutorial), do I have to delete all my existing hoods first?

Yeah, I have all EP's and a new computer. I'm not seeing any major bugs but do have a bit of a slow load and lag when in a lot (probably due to CC and hacks though).

Mostly I want to change or get rid of the ugly maxis characters from my game.

Can you use Sim Surgery to change appearance of maxis townies/downtownies? I wouldn't be playing these characters at all. Just want to make my hood match the theme I'm going for.

Also, I read that killing sims don't really solve the issue and I still see maxis sims popping up with the same names as the ones I killed.

I got a couple of questions actually, pardon me for being a newbie to TS2.

I've been playing a hood I started from a maxis template for more than a month now. Like a majority of people, I too am getting sick of the fugly maxis townies. I've been populating my hood also... creating custom characters and throwing them in but then I notice I have 739 character files (is that too many).
So I downloaded notownieregen and antiredundancy; and starting killing townies I don't want. Eventually I figured out that even killing sims will leave unwanted files left over in my hood. (BTW: I placed gravestones in a graveyard)

So my next thought is should I start from scratch using the tutorial here?

I do have characters in my hood I would like to keep though, is there a way to transport them from my current hood to a new clean one?