Cats and dogs is kind of worse then I expected.

"From what I'm hearing"...perhaps you're only listening to what you want to hear ;) I'm not havinng any of the issues you mention and I can tell you that cats and dogs has added a lot of gameplay value to my game. My sims now have more stuff to do when their home apart from skill building and the pets are hilarious and do the most unexpected things. And I don't care for CAP because I just pick a breed and that's it (never really cared to customize breeds in any sims games).