I did, however, notice a very funny thing with a sim that was on a date. He took her to a restaurant with booths, the booths seat four. He got in first on the outside edge and she dove right over the top of him to get on the inside!
When mine was on a date with booths, the lady sat down first and he sat on the other side, looked around innocently, scooted a ways around, looked around sneakily and scooted some more around until he was next to her (on the inside). It was very cute - once. Took a bit, so probably would be annoying if I was in a hurry to get the date meter up.
I can't make the sectionals work either - not with any table whatsoever - on any residential lot. I tried hard, as I wanted booths on one residential uni lot (ok was probably a silly idea, but I wanted them). The sims all whined even if they're sitting down with a plate of food taken from the serving table. A specific kind of "no whining" hack would help, as they can eat there if they'll just do it, but it doesn't fix the clean up thing...