It’s not hope that’s failing me, it’s expectation. I don’t see it happening, because this concept clearly works for them. I wouldn’t mind a game lasting 5-7 years either (I recently celebrated my personal 10 years Sims 3 anniversary, still playing, still constantly discovering new stuff and it’s not like I hardly played the game during those 10 years, understatement). But not when it concerns a real poor/bare/lacking basegame with a boring, badly thought through gameplay setup for the sims and expansion packs that got “we’re tied to some really annoying limitations here so this is all we can give you” written all over it.
ETA: and I fear EA doesn’t find those limitations annoying themselves, they seem quite comfy with them and they can totally focus on nice decoration now, which must be real fun to do; developing the game I suspect is more fun now than playing it, they’re sort of doing what us players should be able to do. Didn’t a dev declare developing for Sims 3 was a pain sometimes? Sorry about that but I’m still so very very much enjoying what you did back then.