@sir As a person who has been playing The Sims since the first one too, personally I find Sims 4 to be the boring one (and is the most lacking) even with all the packs. Sims 4 also has rabbit holes (so the "no rabbitholes" is false). It even has rabbitholes in places where even Sims 3 didn't. I'm just going to say there's a reason why everyone is begging for a lot of features from Sims 3.
Anyway on topic: As for the timeline, I think they should pick up where Sims 1-3 left off. Sims 4 is an alternate timeline.