You can skip the Launcher when you're on patch 1.67. Lots of players, like myself, prefer to stay at patch 1.67.
ZeeGee quote: "you have to have a pre-2012 base game disc to stay on 1.67, the one with all the diamonds on the cover. The newer ones will force you to patch to 1.69. (source)"
The only way to get back to patch 1.67 is to uninstall the whole game, reinstall the base game, manual install patch 1.67 (don't open the launcher because then it probably wants to update) before you install the rest of your packs in order of release. Once all installed you can uncheck the option in the Launcher to update.
More information and a link to the patches:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17387210/#Comment_17387210Never mind, I just missed your latest response @nickibitsward (I was busy typing this up). ;)