Seriously, why in the world were they abandoned instead of getting fixed? I'm a goal-oriented player and LOVED having some kind of direction about what my Sims wanted to do. Now I feel that there's...
I turned them off. I would keep them on if I felt the majority of them were actually related to my sim. They feel more like someone looking over my shoulder suggesting random things to do.
I just decided to focus on aspiration goals instead to gain reward points. What I want is a trait based thought bubble whim, like emotions has its own thought bubble. This would help bring out a sims personality, not much, but it would help.