These are great! I hate fugly townies and NPCs! Fantastic job!

There has GOT to be a 12-step progam for that...

I pulled the hack, and the two college-agers are still leaving for class from home, but the lot's okay, so far as I can tell. (Backing up the neighborhood more often with SimPE, just in case.) Weird, though. First time I'd done a neighborhood with a 'story', and one of the connecting points to all the families disappears. Wonder if the connectiveness was why he was zapped, and not one of the 'forced-aging' teens/YAs?

I figured it might be something like that. I don't usually play with aging on, so the hack was 'new'. The kids had been in college for a couple of game plays, so it didn't seem that there were any problems...until the Sim disappeared. I'lll pull the hack and skip the college thing. I can find a workable story for Franklin's disappearance (killed while at work, maybe), but I'd hate to start losing Sims I've grown attached to. Wonder if pulling the hack'll killl the Young Adults?

Okay, so I've got this neighborhood with about five families in it, three of which have family ties, and the lot in question is composed of Fergus, his son Franklin, Franklin's wife, Lil, their three kids, Frankie, Farley, and Lana, and two pets, an adopted neighborhood stray dog and a purchased cat. Lana recently grew from child to teen, and I 'forced' Frankie and Farely to grow into Young Adults without a University, as I didn't want to add one (they commute to class, or whatever, thanks to a hack ). Lil's pregnant for the first time in-game (the other kids are CAS), and everyone has a job except Fergus who is happily retired.
  Last night I checked in with the Lot, and the splash screen showed the happy family with the most recent clothing changes. Lot loads and it takes me a minute or two until I notice Frankiln's pic is gone. He's nowhere on  the lot, and he's no longer in anyone's relationship listing! In fact, I checked Lil's pregnancy, and the father  is 'Template Sim'! (Checked wants/fears for everyone, just in case they wanted to resurrect him or something, and he had died while I wasn't looking. Nothing.)
  So I got out of the game and opened up SimPE, and there's no memory of Franklin anywhere, including the two other households that contain HIS brothers, or the woman he had a brief affair with! Deleted Sims leave more of a trail!
    Lil's started to notice her Brother-in-law, so I guess things will turn out okay, but that was weird.

IMO it probably has a lot to do with individual tastes, but the difference in seeing a Sim in CAS and seeing them in game is something I tend to take into account. Most of my male Sims have a touch of eye liner and blush as well as facial hair, due to the fact that they lose accent when seen in the distance in-game, if that makes any sense. My rugged, non-made-up Sims all seemed somewhat washed-out and dull when played, whereas they had distinctive looks in CAS. OTOH, the more accentuated faces were easily recognizable in game play without having to zoom in.

I did, but haven't used it yet. I don't have a real problem with Sims doing dumb things, so long as they aren't potentially dangerous. It usually just cracks me up.

Same here. I've just been adding a standard tub outside or in the garage to every house with a dog, and it works just fine in getting the dog washed, and seems more realistic than messing up the Sims' bathrooms. Only 'glitch' I've had is that occasionally the Sim who just washed the dog will decide that bathing in the garage/outside will be just fine for him/her as well.

I thought that was the whole reason for marriage???   

I had the falshing blue problem, but I used Christianlov's clothing rack to 'change appearance', and replaced the offending accessories, and no problem after that. (I'll have to do more testing to find out whether the specific items always act that way, but I suspect not, as when beds were flashing I replaced them with the exact same bed and it didn't flash at all. something to do with adjusting files or whatnot. Surprisingly little has been wrong so far.

I can't recall exactly what the problem was with toddlers, but I think it often had to do with placing the toddler on the floor, and then being thrown out of the bathroom, and unable to return to retrieve the toddler,  but instead for bathroom-related functions. I would guess that dog-bathing might pose a larger problem, in that the task is not always completed successfully (unsure as of now as to what causes a successful bathing rather than an incomplete one...possibly dog personality and/or skill of Sim attempting to bathe the dog?
  As far as the tub in the garage goes, that was just a Sim thing to do. My teen girl Sim had just bathed the dog, looked around the garage, didn't see anything that interested her more, and decided 'Well, here's a tub...what the hey?' and proceeded to take a bath (mind you, there are two fully-equipped private bathroom not five feet away, but she's a Sim!

I'll give it a try. Seriously, though, it wasn't a complaint about the mod. I have a couple of houses (pre-Pets) that have Bathroom Uses You, and they work perfectly (one has a couple of elders and NEEDS the controller!). I just had some issues with certain homes, and the whole bathing toddlers thing. Since I keep a LOT of my Sims exempt from pregnancy, and thus toddlers, the controller is fine for them. Also, skilled small households seem perfectly capable of using the bathroom normally. The pets thing, though, looked so similar to the toddler problem that I didn't even want to make the attempt. I missed the Sims 1 pet-washing station, and then recalled that we always had a dog tub in the basement or garage when I was growing up, so placing a tub there seemed the way to go. (There's also a workstation and a car in the garage, as well as a dog basket and bowl. the controller would require segmenting the garage or more rearranging than necessary.

I've had some problems with that before, even without toddlers/pets (hammer/sickle appeared in queue multiple times for all Sims, who became unresponsive; just wasn't worth the trouble). WITH toddlers, I had the bather being thrown out of the room after bathing toddler, and then the toddler left in the room, and no one capable of retrieving them. With the  uncertain outcome of a pet bath (dog jumps out before fiully clean, e.g.), I shudder to think what idiocies might occur!:)

Smarter at least.LOL

My custom foods are all still there. I tried to teach my Sim family to cook, but after the second day of toaster pastries, lunch meats, mac n cheese, and unfilled hunger motives, I broke down and gave them Christianlov's Power Fridge, which allows for all foods regardless of skill, and they happily ate beef au jus, bel pepper soup, and french toast. With hunger needs filled, they actiually focused on more important needs..like kicky bag .

I put a bathtub in the garage. Works welll, and gives the kids something to do with the dog. (Of course, Sims being dumb, they invariably try to bathe in the garage.

Hmmm...dog nannies.

I had my Sim purchase a dog at the Community lot. He got into the car, but the dog could not. Kept appearing in his thought bubble, then disappearing. My Sim's motives remained unchanged, though I couldn't get him out of the car, while the dog's deteriorated. Finally, the game kicked the Sim home, where he went about his usual routine. I exited to the neighborhood, and then reentered the lot. The dog appeared in the family group pic, and was on the icons when I entered the lot, but nowhere to be found! My Sim didn't notice the missing pet, but the dog's motives were in the red on the icon. I exited, and haven't been back yet. Strange.

I only have one house with a pet (a dog), but things have been far less annoying than usual, and, without SimPE , I'v had to actually skill up the family members from scratch. Aside from the dog being significantly smarter and more self-sufficient than than the humans, I'm glad that the Sims would rather play 'razzle' or fetch than  kicky bag or rock, paper, scissors on occasion! The dog at least, will get tired of the repettion and go do something constructive, whereas the Sims generally need to be directed.