1. The graphic design is pretty much a given, isn't it? It's Ikea furniture, it's already designed. They just had to reproduce it digitally.
2. How much in-game functionality can a bookcase have?
3. I'm not a fan of endless expansions, DLC, microtransactions, etc. And also not a fan of The Sims. So I'm prejudiced about it, and it shows.

Thank you..... Indeed it was about the quality of the item and how well it goes with other items as opposed to the 'quality of a pixel' ???
If a sofa (for instance) was completely cuboid with little texture and so on that would be a bad quality item (most likely... unless it was explicitly designed that way as a neo-futuristic set or something)... a sofa that looks like it has depth to it, rounded like a normal sofa and with good texturing is a good item...
Just take a peek at the items at the modtehsism2 site - there is a world of difference between the good and the poor creaters in the quality of the item developed. The Maxis staff are very good at their jobs and their items are usually of excellent quality plus they often release items to themed sets so you can fill out a room for your 'African Advenurer' or your 'Victorian dining room# etc etc
Here's an example....
Say you have a kid in the family where you build up her story that she loves mermaids, underwater stuff and so on. Purchasing the items here:
http://thesims2store.ea.com/productList.html?scategoryId=10679&categoryId=10658
Means that you can put together a lovely underwater themed room for her....
The thing to remember about The Sims is that ultimately it is a story generator and not a game with an end point to accomplish as such. The more variety of items and themes you have the more stories can be generated in a town. The better quality of these items (good textures, balanced polygon count to avoid performance issues, perhaps even normalisation and/or reflective maps here required etc etc) the more immersive the virtual world can seem and the more it can draw you into a story.
The key reason I'm looking forward to The Sims 3 is the expansion of the story from a single house to an entire neighbourhood. From the previews and videos I've seen the whole town becomes one big story as opposed to running multiple houses one at a time with minimal impact (relationship scores but thats it) on the other houses.
And to his I reiterate... I applaud EA for dropping draconian DRM in favour of a simple CD key. If they drop stuff packs for the store this could be a good move provided the price is right. I have no problems with microtransactions in games for DLC - provided that the DLC meets the level of the cost properly. The horse armor in oblivion was stupid... the later items like wizards tower was not.

Sims 3, Yay. Another one i won't touch.
Unless they release a 'Home Stuff' pack featuring the comfy chair, naturally.

Actually this is an interesting point and an argument against The Sims brought up often.
Looking over the history of that game there were 7 expansions for The Sims 1 (now available in a single edition as the complete collection), 8 themed stuff packs for The Sims 2 - plus a special holiday pack as well - and 8 expansions for The Sims 2....
That is a lot at first glance but then you have to think about the timespan these were developed/released over....
There is no way that EA could have developed The SIms 2 as it was at the end of the last expansion for the original game. Not only would the time to develop be prohibitively long but the feedback from the community over what they would like to see wouldn't have been there resulting in a huge game (so more likely bugfest) with those who would be using ti to create stories not having input....
So we have to break it down to realistically create it..... First step a base game that would work as a common denominator for any additions.... Next step looking to see what can be implemented to work in this virtual world... Reiterate this step until core engine update being needed. When this stage is reached release new version....
Personally I'm amazed that they can release so many expansions and have them all work together properly - to the point where you can use hobby equipment in the Freetime expansion to use in a home business in the Open for Business expansion and so on.

My post bugged out :/
1. The quality of the texturing (grain of wood and so on) and the accuracy of reproduction of IKEA items to the game defines the quality of said item.
2. A lot... by the end of the last expansion it can be used for storing, reading and discussing custom novels written by your sims, studying for university, studying life skills like parenting, studying skills like cooking and cleaning oh and just reading a regular book.... If a fan made bookcase was made for an earlier expansion later expansion additions to the options may not be present/work.
3. Then you are not the target audience for these games. As you say you are prejuduced against them so I think there will be little common ground to try to demonstrate why someone would like DLC for a game like The Sims.

Did it bug out in the sense that it said something entirely different before? Good thing you changed it, as the previous version of it was wrong, wrong, wrong. The new one, I can agree with.

Sort of yeah - it was an extended version of that....
I had a long post answering your 3 points from the point of view of a sims player and then when i posted it there was another post from you responding to something before... I went to requote something specific and respond to that point (the first half of my post before) but that messed up my original post and I lost my 3 points version so did a quick summary thing instead...
I'm not sure how you can say the original post was wrong, wrong, wrong as the core reasoning was the same as the agreed version... but then I don't remember exactly what I wrote then.

I was referring to what your point 3 said before, which is why I only quoted your new point 3. In the old one, you made the assumption that if I didn't like The Sims, then I obviously didn't like open-ended sandbox gameplay, which is about as far from the truth as you can get.

Ah fair enough... and yes that was a gross mis-assumption in retrospect and I'm glad it was removed - even if by accident!
In terms of open-ended sandbox games where do your preferences lie? Obviously not the sims.... but simcity? transport tycoon? etc etc

Transport Tycoon is one of my favourite games of all time. I like SimCity, but not all that much. I'm very much into the GTA games (although I haven't tried GTA IV, and have no inclination to do so either). There are some strategy games that are kind of "sandboxy", meaning they focus more on building and developing stuff than on direct warfare. Also, I like 4X space games a lot. Many of them are quite "sandboxy" too.
I had great hopes for Spore, as it seemed to be the ultimate sandbox game I'd been waiting for. I was sorely disappointed :-(

Yeah I was looking forward to Spore as well and felt severely let down by the game in the end.
The open-ended games you mention... can't really think of many good opportunities for those (other than simcity with new buildings etc) for DLC - much less paid for DLC.

I miss Sims 1, make another expansion pack for THAT.

Oh god no... by the time all the mar/far archives have finished loading you could have had dinner, had a bath and slept the night by the end of them... even worse with a bunch of downloaded content on top of them....
Besides I can't think of anything I'd want added to it that wouldn't require an engine change... (genetics, aging, work, etc) which would just then be The Sims 2 anyway....
I wonder what the first EP for the sims 3 will be... education again? ;)

So now we have like, 102 different packs?

Actually, I'm just flabbergasted that 99.9% of you guys missed the boat entirely!
The mere fact that EA has backed away from SecuROM is a HUGE victory for gamers everywhere. Whether that means EA is in talks to bring its catalog to GOG is another story entirely. I actually might buy several games if they came to GOG, most notably the old EA sports (NOT the EA Sports brand) titles like Earl Weaver Baseball and the old PGA Tour Golf from Sterling Silver Software.
BJ