@EnjoyfulSimmer with the right cc skin, eyes, clothes, and hair, along with custom sliders, you can make Sims 3 Sims look pretty good. And I honestly feel Sims 3 lends itself to realistic style much more than Sims 4 (which is why I only use mm cc for Sims 4).
I don't recall a texture issue, maybe it was my PC, but the game looked really good for its time.
But, I will say, I do think Sims 3 looks very outdated to me now. I didn't feel that way just a year or so ago, but I started much preferring Sims 4 cartoony and mm cc (including cc skins, eyes, and details that I feel are a necessity for Sims 4 as well).
Once I embraced Sims 4 style, I just lost my interest in Sims 3 style, but I still think a lot of people have done some amazing things with Sims (Mikezumi, for instance.)