I would like to add my sincere thanks to crinrict (and to twallen if he gets involved) for investigating this and trying to find solutions. It’s outrageous and unacceptable that EA don’t have a team doing exactly that, but I'm grateful to you for doing their job for them!
I really don’t want to use mods, I never have before and I would hate to start now. However I can see that they are useful for trying to pinpoint problems. Testing using mods may lead to a future mod-free solution.
I reached sim week 11 in my test game. I’m saving frequently, nervously awaiting the Big Glitches. The only major thing I’ve had so far is a couple of merged sims that got stuck to each other, I managed to get a few screenshots this time, see below, and some lag. If I can get to the point of having a just-pre-invisible-game, I’ll let you know crinrict, just in case you want more material by that point.
Edit: to show my shots of one of the mergers; I like to call this montage "Sim-Grim".
http://llnw.thesims3.com/sims3_asset/sims3_asset/media/shard000//shard000/030/426/008/00/screenshot_original.jpg
http://llnw.thesims3.com/sims3_asset/sims3_asset/media/shard000//shard000/033/426/008/00/screenshot_original.jpg
As if it isn't stressful enough to lose two parents in one week, my poor sim also had to put up with being stuck half way through the Reaper that came to "collect" his mother!
