There are mods for height sliders/settings, there are worlds that have lot extenders but not the same as open world, there is a mod for skilling on community lots (and for townies, too, no one wants to marry a dumb townie without any skills) and there are work arounds to set the clocks in TS2 so it's the same time when your Sim returns. It's not impossible to make it more like TS3, however, I don't think EA wants to remarket TS2 when they have a cash cow like TS4 and TS3 is still selling it's store stuff just as high as it always was.
