I mostly play with vampires, and since they live forever, or at least forever until they get caught outside, I need a regular influx of new townies as the older ones pass away from old age. So, yeah, I've used everything from the Maxis uploads from trailers, to the remakes by fans, to official remakes, to random households I have in my library because I'm a compulsive re-starter and I've got a ton of sims lying around that just never got played.
I also use a lot of simselfs from the gallery. I find that they are typically more earnest and flawed than the typical supermodel-scientist-astronaut and their perfect family that you usually see on the gallery. Sometimes I will even take two different simselfs and make them into a family with kids and all. It's a good method for quickly making some replacement townie families if you want something customized but don't want to sit in CAS for two hours.
