The townie generation in Sims infuriates me. I hate randomised townies, I always have. They seem to have given us the ability to create Sims, but those Sims can't take advantage of any npc opportunity even while unplayed without going back and forth deleting the townies again and again. I like the game and I can work around it, but that certainly doesn't mean I want to waste my time doing that.
I don't feel that the Sims have ever been autonomously smart in any game, potentially TS3 but I haven't played enough of it to know since I only played about 4-5 hours of base game + World Adventures. Smarter Sims who can't even figure out when their parent had died in the room next door.. It's not a big request, I still have faith that things will be changed though.