The link was a scan of the actual magazine article and not the links to pics provided on the forums, which was the first link you provided I think.
And oh I agree with what you said, DM. I am not spending more money on this franchise unless they make it worth my while. And I do like a lot of what I read. It just seems like this game is headed in the online social direction, like they haven't changed their plans at all - they just had to take it offline at first because of SimCity. But to me it's looking an awful lot like the social online crap is soon coming to a sims game near you. It also seems there is a lot of directed gameplay with unlocking this and unlocking that. I don't want my sims' furniture to make them burst out in tears constantly. So I dunno. Jury is still out for me.
Cant' wait to see more next week, though. We'll see if they show anything that sways me one way or the other.