I find Meaningful Stories essential, but it does have its issues. sometimes you have a +1 emotion moodlet stopping a combined +7 emotional moodlets from overriding in some instances and sometimes the lingering emotional moodlet does not go away as it should and keeps another moodlet from having the desired effect.
Also it is too easy to get very happy, especially in an apartment and with presents piles on the lot, that way you only need to go to the board, read the note, head inside and then open a present to get to very happy. i then exploit that when i have enough simoleons to sit on skill classes all day. for the especially difficult skills like rock climbing, it makes them very easy to get where it would take a long time otherwise using the climbing wall from the fitness pack or the climbing walls from snowy escapes.
There is a lot of room for improvement from Meaningful Stories, but at least there are times where negative moodlets can increase and combine with others. So it is still miles better than the base game emotion system.
