I agree with the OP and, at risk of sounding like a broken record, I'm just going to point out, once again, that there's no Fear emotion at all. There is an entire "negative" emotion (in a game whose main focus is emotions) missing from the emotional spectrum that lends to the imbalance towards consistent happiness.
Also, the actual default emotional state is "happy" when it should be"fine". The default should be a neutral place so that, as Sims experience stimuli, the meter then tips one way or the other.
If these two things were changed, I think we'd see a huge difference in gameplay for the better, and the game would still be perfectly child friendly.
