Strangerville was one of three packs I actually purchased the day they came out. I loved Strangetown in TS2 and look forward to playing out the Strangerville story when I'm done getting a few Sims passing this semester at University.
The key is keeping an open mind. One of the mods at AHQ mentioned that University would be redundant and I have to agree. It took me two days to figure out how to do a University with a Greek system without mods, and about four hours to design a glitch-free mod that works almost exactly like the TS2 UNI pack after that.
Doing so, I found a lot of hidden gems in the neighborhood story, like the Villareal family's struggle with mood swings and psychiatric issues, and the complicated interrelationships between various characters in various neighborhoods. I found out particularly good students can get a trophy for being the class valedictorian. I see potential for incorporating some of the Strangerville features into other story-lines.
I have a strong hunch about the direction the Strangerville story will take, but I'm not going to let that spoil my fun in solving it.