I think The Sims community can pretend to be progressive all day and night, but in the end, white and pretty (and generally, female) sims tend to win out. I can't think of a time when they haven't. Remember "Face 1" from TS2? Everyone used that template and regarded it as the most attractive. It's an attractive, heart-shaped face with white facial features.
This did prompt me to look at my Exchange Gallery for TS3 and sort my Sims by downloads. None of them ever got much success, but the top two (tied with 31 downloads a piece) were interesting. One of them was one of my own pretty blonds. The other was Black and Indian with unconventional features, though! But they were both women, and I have yet to have a male sim crack more than 15 downloads. Probably because they don't look like anime pretty-boys.
