I'm also getting the blacken blur. It really doesn't bother me that much, though.
My other freezing issue still occurred after adding errortrap but I figured out it was with the heir. When she was at work, my game never froze. I waited until the baby was born (the pregnant sim was the heir's daughter) to see if it was due to a pregnancy and the game still froze, so I killed the heir by death ranting. It still hiccups every now and then, but for only a second...not seconds or minutes. I'm still keeping the Errortrap mod in my game. It found 2 things (before me killing my sim and the freezing still happened), so it's worth keeping, I think.
Thanks for the help and info. Generation 8 has arrived. Two more to go...I'm glad I'll get to see them. :)