Yes, the culling in EA SP is interrupting to any plans for the particular world's relations. My method is to befriend the townies in as great an amount I can; either with a lone sim household being best friend with all, or strategically making friends between selected households switching between them. It seems the sims having no connections to the played one(s) get removed first. If I find a premade household having disappeared when I want to play them, not having previously done so; I copy them from a newly started save for the same world, and place them in my played save on the lot previously belonging to them, so to speak. It is a bit of a hassle.
And yes, rudeness is unpleasant wherever it is encountered; forums with better moderation, like Carl's or MTS as just two examples, certainly gives a much better impression.
If and when I want to use other methods for story progression I will try both of the existing ones; their different approaches to an idea of realism are equally interesting, as well as other aspects of them; they seem to have their own narratives, given the different developers attitudes to the game's opportunities.
