There are different ways of playing this game. Some players like to go with generations and death, others don’t want that. Some players just add new Sims, others are attached to theirs.
It’s up to every player, which way they go.
The locations can be paid with LPs instead of using Orbs. Of course it will take a long time to collect them and get everything on the island done. Working on Orbs takes a long time as well, if not even longer.
Your Sims will age either way, but you can revert their age to the beginning of their life stage for free. In the beginning we had to pay lots of LPs for that.
You can take the life orb without getting rid of a sim. It just resets them, so you can start accruing experience to build another orb, although it will take longer the second time.
Also though, I don't get the issues people having with sims dying. You can just add a new one.
