Mistressgemini... Sometimes I like to help folks. If you wanna be an asshole... be an asshole. I'll help folks from time to time... and be a douchebag. Thanks for your feedback! 

Well so far, for the Fast Lane and Late Night patches...

I perused through the manifests up on:
http://akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/sims3_sp02_sku1_update_manifest10.xml

http://akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/sims3_ep03_sku1_update_manifest10.xml

Doesn't appear to have an actual "super patcher" cumulative update for either Fast Lane or Late Night but....

There are incrementals.

Fast Lane Stuff (incremental)

http://akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/Sims3_5.4.4.009001_from_5.2.4.009001.exe

Late Night (incremental)

http://akamai.cdn.ea.com/eadownloads/u/f/sims/sims3/patches/Sims3_6.1.11.009001_from_6.0.81.009001.exe

Hey tickleonthetum. Thanks for posting those direct patch links! Awesome!

I hate that damned launcher and don't like using some third party thing to patch either.

Well looks like some of these fixes are pretty decent. Especially ATI graphics/wall nonsense. The Subway tips thing really annoyed the hell outta me too. Glad that's fixed. Though, after perusing through that huge list of fixes, I really didn't catch any information in there about fixing the band gig opportunity frequency. Takes much too long to get gigs even when having the full four bandmates as the active household. Guess we'll see. I'm definitely holding off on patching until a new AwesomeMod is posted by Pescado.

Awesomemod will work with the base game. Just make sure you patch your game to the latest patch from EA first. Pescado always keeps the mod up to date so there are no earlier versions available/archived for the peasantry. Patch your game then use it!

edit: EA released a new patch for the game today. Don't use the latest AwesomeMod until Pes updates it.