I saw the zipping in the past, it's been around for a while and was not introduced with CoL. I think stairs were involved often, but I also think I saw the zip when bookcases were involved? Hm. Might be even longer ago.
With CoL I have the teleport issue, but I don't think it's relatd. First I thought the teleport was intented to save time when they walked liong distances, and I embraced it. I thought "If a sim has been walking for more than 10 sim minutes then teleport to destination" was a splendid idea, otherwise most of your day in a huge house will be spent on walking. That said, I often teleport sims around in my houses, mostly the larger ones, I don't need to watch them walk every little step.
