I've been playing vanilla for a while now, almost two years I think? For about two months in that time I put in a few mods but the patches just make me have to remove them again, and since we have patches frequently, I just stopped bothering. I've been without CC for that time as well.
For the first few years of the game I definitely used a lot of CC and some mods here and there. I like to keep my mods limited to avoid conflicting issues. CC was always a big thing for me because I like to create fantastical creatures and my own Occults and have more costumes and period clothing. After Get Famous released, I got it on sale mainly just for the Acting career and all of the CAS. Since then, I haven't felt a huge need for CC. I do have to sometimes use a mod briefly to unlock it when I need it though. I really wish they would release more cheat codes for older packs to do this.
I still have my original CC-filled save that I was playing for those first years, and the custom content that I used. I haven't played it in a long time but I transferred those households to the gallery and redownloaded them to play them vanilla so I don't really feel like I need to return to that save. When Sims 4 stops being developed one day I'll get all the mods I really want and pick through the CC to take what I need and fully customize my game to my liking.
