I feel the complete opposite way, but I also understand your sentiment.
In a way there are a huge amount of complex build options in TS4 which can be overwhelming at times. Of course there are also things missing.
I never built in The Sim or The Sims 2. I only introduced myself to the latter a couple of months ago. Never played The sims.
I've always loved building structures in TS3 however, and for me the World Creation Tool is something I really, really miss in TS4. World building is one of my favorite things to do. In life haha. That level of customization not being available in the latest installment does actually annoy me at times, because I don't always want to move my sims into a pre-made world. I feel EA/Maxis is going to try and sell us as many pre-worlds as possible before we get our own little -create your own district- tool. If ever.
Another thing that very much bothers me in TS4 is the lack of ceilings tiles. This is where build mode truly falls short in my opinion. I love building old structures with wooden or dirty ceilings. None of that is possible, which for me can be immersion breaking because of that awful white space that's visible as soon as the camera tilts. And I tilt the camera a lot. My builds never feel complete due to the absence of proper ceiling textures.
I never understood the dev's choice not to include them, other than that it has to do with folks using the TS4 camera more and thus not seeing the ceilings. Other priorities too, obviously, but I'd appreciate it if they gave us that ceiling tool. As in, soon.
The ability to earth sculpt ponds and an additional stairs tool to create spiral stairs is something else I would like to see again.
Other than that I think TS4 build mode is the bees knees. It's my favorite so far!
