I never had the issues of running and crashes with Sims 3 that everyone else seems to have, so that's not a con for me at all.
Five years into the life of Sims 4, and I'm still racking up hours on Sims 3. I played Sims 4 exclusively for a while, but it was mostly from the novelty of a new pack or playing out a story of some kind. And the former really doesn't keep me entertained anymore. It's worth mentioning Sims 3 was not my first game, so there's not really a nostalgia factor to it. I probably have more hours on Sims 3 in one year than in Sims 4 across five.
There are some things about Sims 4 I like (ex: how easy it is to travel to other words), but overall, I much prefer Sims 3 and Sims 2, for that matter. The lack of individualism and personality beyond what's on hypothetical paper for sims is really the biggest issue for me. I remember in Sims 2, if you ruined a relationship between two sims, you had to work to fix it. One of my favorite households is the Pleasants, and it took all of university to fix Angela and Lilith's relationship with each other. I had once had two sims with -100 for each (I don't recall how that happened). It was challenge to get them to amicable with each other, let alone friends. But in Sims 4, sims will readily hug someone they just got into a fistfight with minutes earlier. In fact, toddlers are the only sims who occasionally reject hugs. I remember being surprised when a total stranger was able to hug my kid sim.
I've reached the point I either leave the sims to their own devices or close Sims 4 after five minutes.
I also very much agree about Sims 4 being too much of a "Happy Land", and this comes from someone who likes "fluffy" fan fiction. There is such a thing as "too happy".
