I see what you're talking about in regards to the game going off the reservation with SH. Personally I don't mind it as much because I just store all the buildings I don't like and only keep the ones I do like. Luckily you don't have to have them out to maintain the property value, which is a huge relief.
With that said, the new machanic of grinding away for micro-currency is a bit annoying, but to be fair they did it for a reason. If you think about it, new content is usually expensive. This means newer players will feel left out because they don't have millions on reserve. Hell I've been playing from the start and I'm broke in the game. Partially my fault since I barely exploited things for multiplier increasing items. Point is this kinda evened the playing field for newer players.
My only gripe with it is, it takes way too much time and you lose out on making money by sending those characters to do those tasks. Not to mention they're short which in a way is a good thing. But not so much if you can't log in every 2-20 minutes to check up on them. It's really a double edged sword situation.
I do see how someone can compare this to the family guy game. Which interestingly enough is why I quit playing that game. The tasks to get new characters in that game got crazier and the events were overwhelming. It's the only reason why I stuck with TSTO. It was a bareable game to play. And still is for the most part. I just hope they ease off with the "special tasks" or decrease the amount of items needed to upgrade buildings.