I have the same issue. Speeding up time doesn't seem to speed up the animation. Simscommunity.info stubbornly finish the animation of whatever they are doing so speeding up time without speeding up the animation makes actions take forever in sims time. Events not immediately starting or stopping when they are supposed to also sounds familiar.
This is happening for quite a while for me, despite several game repairs. I spend most of the time in speed 1 because of this issue so I play at a very slow pace because of it.
Is this what people call simulation lag?