Interesting...
Went to check it out in my game. Those interactions don't appear when the sim in question is in the household, so I switched the household. And for me too, the ask about preferences interaction for those I haven't assigned didn't appear. Didn't find anything about randomization in the tuning files however...
On the categorization, Most should be under Interests, and Hobbies and Skills should be in Hobbies. Favorite color being under Small Talk is strange. Sure, it could be considered one, but it won't be affected by Small Talk conversation preference from Growing Together, but rather from Interests preference. So, if a sim dislikes Small Talk and someone asks for their favorite color, they should accept it as normal according to the tuning files.
With randomization, I'd suggest testingcheats as CAS randomization removes the old preferences. Enable the cheat, shift-click on your sim, and navigate to Cheat Sim Info.../Add Sim Preference. This will add on random likes or dislikes.
Likes and Dislikes are part of the base game, though, so Growing Together shouldn't have anything to with which submenu they are on.
