I do wish traits influenced autonomous behavior more. It seems like they changed the concept between 3 and 4 from "this trait influences what the sim will do autonomously" to "this trait affects how what you make your sim do will make them feel." Probably because they wanted to focus on the new emotions system. I do see that my active sims are more likely to turn up at the gym, but that doesn't carry across to every lot type and the unplayed sims who show up are random rather than trait-based.
I think with whims, I like the fact that they are optional, because I played Sims2 for 10 years and I was ready for something other than fulfilling wants all the time. But I feel like because they were optional and not everyone bothered with them, they never got any development. They pay way too much attention to what their metrics say people are using to drive development, rather than seeing that better developed features would get more use (see the whole childhood stage).
I like the base game aspirations. Again, coming from sims 2, I was ready for something other than every romance sim wants to make out with three sims, and when you do that they'll roll the want to make out with five sims, and then 10... it wasn't that different from the checklist version in 4, except for what the other wants might be on a given day. The variety of aspirations in the base game and the depth of some of them is nice. But the ones that have come with most of the packs have been pretty shallow and easy to achieve. The existence of childhood aspirations is a nice touch, but the same four over multiple generations get old. I would love teen and elder aspirations that are something like the childhood ones but that have to do with teen social and school performance and after school activities, or with retirement and hobbies and volunteering etc. And more childhood options. It's like the idea was good but there wasn't enough depth or breadth to last for years of gameplay.
