Oh wow that’s a lot and I’m a bit in a hurry so I’m not going to answer everything, just some things real quick.
* I only have the 4GB-patch and have done nothing further, and the game has worked fine for years. My computer is older however and I have windows 7 instead of 10 on it. But unless you actually start having problems you don’t need to do anything else.
* The corruption thing is so over exaggerated with sims 2. These are the things not to do: don’t ever delete tombstones. Don’t ever delete sims. Don’t move occupied lots between worlds. If you avoid those things you should be fine. Of course if you cheat and mod the game to do things it wasn’t intended to do, check first to make sure. In any game corruption is always a risk when you cheat and mod. I will say, I’m at my sixth generation with over 50 active households in my game, and my mod folder is immense, and I have no corruption. Just check before you do certain things: like if you want to cheat to add certain NPC’s to your household that the game won’t let you do without cheating, you should probably do a quick google search first.
* There’s this mod for syncing time but I haven’t tried it myself cause the time sync doesn’t bother me: https://lazyduchess.tumblr.com/post/653200163683418112/timesync-beta/amp
* Yes there’s plenty. I don’t have any myself but I’ve seen lots. Check Pleasant sims, on her website I think she links a few. You can also check Modthesims, or simply google.
Good luck!
