I'm very dissatisfied and irritated with "bad news" from them. But they said in the stream:
"Although we are not currently working on whims, it is a system we would like to revisit in the future."
I'm a PC player so at least I'm just packed with mods for that. And they are the only reason I keep playing to be honest. I feel whims are very important. I perceive them as a sort of feedback system between the player and the sim character. When whims are meaningful (aka dependent on traits, aspirations and relations) they give me as a player a picture of sim personality and what to do with their story.
I'm pretty sure devs can not not understand these. So I hope they indeed will revisit them. But with so many packs and being ignorant of whims for so long they would avoid it as long as they can probably.
Yet I can't understand if a single modder (Bienchen) managed to make a huge whim overhaul why the whole paid team "now committing more time in schedules than ever before to free updates" can't do so? 'Cause they are to busy adding pronounce? Well, good luck with game direction then...