Hey Rflong7 ... Great to see you still around ... ❤️
The biggest problem I have found with creating the same, or similar Sims, is centered more on what we desire as players. It's true we don't need cookie-cutter Sims, but "style" has more to do with what we as players want to watch run around a Sim world.
Certain hairdos I just cannot stand ... They look terrible to me, and it doesn't matter if they match the Sim's personality, I am not going to use them. Outfits are the same way ... So, you figure out ways to make your Sim's "own" their clothes by creating styles and using textures within the same category. Plus ... The easiest way to keep your Sims from being cookie cutter versions, is to change their "traits" more than their looks.
Last but not least ... I played without mods for ten of the fourteen years I have played this game ... They make a difference if you want different Sims. The first thing you do is take a common Sim, completely mess them up with sliders ... Then try to fix everything you messed up making them look entirely different.
Add the fact that making Sims do the same things is part of what makes them boring ... Unless you use the "Achiever Game Style" where achieving goals is more important to your Sims than trying to live a normal life fashioned after our lives and desires. With Sims 3 ... You can start a Sim as a single pregnant woman ... And they can end up a millionaire owning half the town or more ... Or they can live in a shack off a dirt road and struggle until the day they die.
Seriously ... A player's Sims are simply what the player wants them to be ... And what that Sims will become is only limited by how the player sees them pursuing life and embracing the Sim world around them.
Happy Simming ... ❤️