Story Progression is a step in the right direction but at the same time does not offer any kind of options and full control over what I want and do not want the system to do. Whether to micromanage individual Sims or households, etc would be versatile to fine tune the game to play as I want. The reason I don't play with SP on is because I get attached to all the Sims, even the ones that are role Sims, homeless Sims and service Sims besides residential Sims. I don't want anyone moving just to disappear but if it were an accurate feature where they literally moved to a different town and I could always see and play them then maybe I wouldn't mind.
Also, SP has the tendency to just kill off at random even when the population is below 80 in my then game and I don't like that. I don't want any of my Sims dying needlessly and would rather manage the population myself which I have been doing since I don't use SP.
And yes, playing with SP off does not affect the A.I. or the A.I. driven stories but does mean that Sims cannot autonomously do certain things. So there's a mod to allow those romantic autonomous options, etc back in without turning SP on or one can micromanage it all. Personally, I prefer giving Sims as much autonomous freedom as possible because the best entertaining moments to me are always those that are completely unscripted by the A.I.
Still.Not.Bored.