Whims still exist, you just need to enable them in the settings I guess?? Unless I turned them off myself and turned them back on and forgot.
But yeah, they are incredibly easy to ignore. I definitely preferred the wants system in TS3, as well as the wants/fears system in TS2, which was even better. It gave me genuine goals to work towards, and things to avoid.
The whims in TS4 are more like, huh, did I just complete a whim I wasn't even aware that my sim had? Okay then.