Starting A New Save Without Automatically Going Into CAS

Well, you could still just save a fresh save after you only did the necessary steps to not have to start in CAS and use that savefile as a starting point whenever you feel like starting a new save. I'd say that's quite a decent workaround.

Bugs almost never affect unplayed saves and if there is a townie makeover once in a year you could always just switch out that family or do a new starting save for that special occasion.