While Sims 4 has its downfalls, I don't think this is a very fair comparison. Yes, there were more lots, but many of them were rabbit holes which just made me downright sad. I want to see my sims every moment, and it bothered me that not all lots were playable.
The store was incredibly overpriced...last time I had added it up at the time all those years ago, it was over $1400 for all the DLC, not to mention the prices of EPs and SPs, which didn't even have extra gameplay unlike stuff packs of today (hot tub, movies, buffet table, butler, etc).
Even though the Sims 3 loads the entire world at once, the load times were crazy. I would go up to the kitchen, get a drink and a snack, go back to the pc, and still wait for the thing to load (I have a new pc now, but then I had average specs for Sims 3). Everytime I wanted to go to another world, again, loading. Now I get a little blip loading screen and voila, I'm in any world I want. The update gave us plenty of room on the neighborhood icon screen, so there are hopefully way more to come.
I did some math, I might be off a lot or two, but right now there are 161 buildable lots in the Sims 4 if you own all of the current DLC, 174 if you count Outdoor Retreat and Jungle Adventure. It's not too bad when you think of it.
