EA Patch is reported to be very borked up I do not want to install it until they make it good.
Based on what? Hearsay?
Plenty of people have patched successfully but human nature being what it is the ones who have not are making much more noise than the ones who have.
A lot of the loudest noise is coming from the Exchange, MTS and TSR whose average users are quite frankly not the most savvy to begin with. And lord knows many in this community love an excuse to kermitflail.
Why don't you just try it? You won't lose you save games. Worst that can happen is you have to reinstall and just apply the first patch. Eh.
If you have troubles with it you can always ask around for a solution.
I swear all this hysteria over the patch is scaring off people from even trying to apply the damned thing when they don't even know if they'll have problems, they just think they will because they read a bunch of other people going on about it so.