This may seem like a weird problem but my plants level up to quickly and when talking with other sims both the friendship and romance bar quickly goes up.
After the update I started a new game and allready I have 40+ plants as perfect or almost there. Some of them were sheltered but still not a pace that I have seen before.
Regarding relationship - I am playing the reaper thing but until last night I had only summoned and talked with the reaper once or twice. Last night I summoned him againg for the week 4 events and going from knowing each other to roommates and then to romance and parents within 2 hours of gameplay - I think it was too easy and too quick :)
Do anyone else have this issue? I have all the packs and I have removed my save-files and mods before the update. The clean start was able to fix my problem with the event and I could now again progress in the event. The only negative is that it's almost to easy :)