The problem is Sims 4 teens are indistinguishable from adults. I think the request for a "pre-teen" stage is primarily a reaction to the fact that Sims 4 teens are essentially adults and the jump from childhood to the adult-like teen age is jarringly unrealistic and disruptive in storytelling. In my main game, I've never aged up kids to teens because I can't overcome the poor implementation of teens in Sims 4. It's essentially transitioning from child to adult. It reminds me of the exclusion of toddlers when Sims 4 was first released. The fact that Sims 4 teens are essentially adults makes it seem like when Sims 4 was released they ran out of time to Actually create a teenage stage (like toddlers) and so just skipped it by calling the adult equivalents "teens." It's like going back to Sims 1 babies being Object like in Sims 4 until infants were released. It's a tragedy to see these types of issues where Sims 4 has less quality than Sims 2.