Nannies Invasion...:)

[Ancient Sim]

And the reason the elders all live there is because the REAL problem is not actually the number of sims, but the number of families: Each additional family adds extra drag weight on the playing of the neighborhood

Are you saying now then that it doesn't matter how many character files we have, but how many FAMILIES?  Oddly enough, I have been doing exactly the same thing as you.  I also have a one-child policy (except I do allow Family Sims to have 2 - I always marry two Family Sims if I can to avoid spreading the 2-children families) and recently I have started merging households.  For example, the two Pleasant sisters now live together in the Pleasant house with the respective spouses (all getting close to the end now) and I've just moved-in Dustin's eldest daughter.  Her sister has her own house, but I may move their brother into the Pleasant house.  It also makes it easier to keep siblings ageing chronologically. 

[Oddysey]

Besides, what's the point of filling in everyone's SimBio, "This is So-and-So. He is mean, and likes to scowl. Do not feed him."

The point is that you can make one sim who is not mean and does not like to scowl, and everyone else will make his life miserable for dramatic effect.

This business about the number of families: is this a game issue or a personal preference? Is it the number of families or the number of sims that causes the game to explode? I can see how having a large number of families would make gameplay rather slow if one was keeping them all in synch, but does it have any negative effect on the game's internal operation?