To be fair the sims 4 was supposed to an online game (check the sims olympus), due to the disastrous debut of SimCity, the idea was scrapped and the devs had to hustle to make the game offline and single player. For that very reason I think this is why the base game is still lacking.
The base game lacks fundamental, complex and integrated coding. Therefore anything, and I feel it's fair to say this, that gets added as an update to the base game will fall short. It's harsh but needs to be said.
Likes and dislikes were added because the community asked for it, but that's just it, they added it. It's a clicking simulation game at this point. It's devoid of personality, complexity, reused animations again and again.
A team of devs needs to sit down and tackle the coding in this game.