Sims 4 has some great ideias implemented and I still hate how people put down the previous games because "the sims are uglier than S4" or "it's too clunky". I hope you manage to fix your sims 3 and avoid lags. I changed several things in my desktop and, unfortunately, I've had a problem or two once in a while. Basically, I can't throw a costume party or a girft-giving one that my game shuts without warning.
Regarding open world, I do think the developers didn't do their homework right. There's a game called Fable that has small worlds just like S4. However, once you are in the neighborhoods, you have total freedom. I think it's one thing that S4 could have used -it's ridiculous to be at the door of your neighbor and have a loading screen to interact with them! Also, cars could have been implemented in a cute way, with a proper animation of sims entering it and driving to the edge of the map... For instance, there are several items in the store that I rarely use because of lack of animations such as the merry-go-round and the tractor.
I really can't get enough of my sims 3 for two reasons: 1- I put a lot of money in it (it WAS/IS really expensive), 2- I'm attached to my sims, it's where they live and exist. If they had created S4 with a tool to import sims from S3 (at least), I would have totally played it more.
