I really like the canoes. I use them for fishing all over the place. My sims have even caught some rare fish (the leopard shark and the butterfly fish) that I couldn’t get anywhere else while using the Island canoe.
As for the boat issue, I think the entire reason we don’t have boats that can seat multiple riders is because we don’t yet have cars. They haven’t created the basic mechanics for transporting multiple riders together. I certainly hope they add this capability.
Group activities I enjoy doing in TS4: group meals (these are greatly improved over TS3), chatting in groups (really easy to do with any number of sims), playing card games, playing the llama game, parents and children playing with the dollhouse, doing school projects as a family, kids doing homework and talking together at the same time, blocks table, decorating the tree at Winterfest, singing carols together, lighting the menorah, watching tv/ films together, playing foosball, darts, playing basketball, playing video games/ console games, telling stories, hanging out at a campfire, bowling, using the hot tub, and building snow people or sand castles.
Group activities that I would like to have back from previous games: dancing — definitely! (Not just slow dancing but the waltz they could do in TS2 and maybe some Latin dances like salsa, tango and rhumba), Marco Polo from TS2, Mary Mack, hide and seek, Rock Paper Scissors, cops and robbers, pool table (!), ping pong, hopscotch, playing tag, tree house, forming and playing in bands (this time with singers as well as the other instruments), playing catch, see saw, spin the bottle, martial arts, sword fighting from TSM, fixing a car, and the blocks/art table from TS2.