I am not sure what is meant by Strangetown being hyped -- do you mean in the fan community? I think people enjoy discussing the premade neighborhoods because it's a common experience, since most people have played them, so it's a lot easier to connect around them.

Strangetown is my longest-running neighborhood currently. I play other hoods (both my own and premades), get bored of them, and return to Strangetown. It's still beloved to me. I'll try to explain the appeal.

For a long-time fan of horror and science fiction, Strangetown is very open to these kinds of stories, whereas they don't really fit in other neighborhoods. I have come up with enduring stories for all the families in Strangetown and added some of my own. The Tricous (resurrected by Olive) as vampires fit in very well, as do the Travellers, which are my werewolf pack in Strangetown. Strangetown continues to inspire new stories for me, where I kind of get in a rut when I play other neighborhoods.

The premades have very extreme personalities. Many of them have either 10 or 0 in one or more of the personality traits. This made them very interesting characters to me, and their children inherit the extreme personalities (although sometimes opposite), which has led to some conflicts and twists in my storytelling. In my current playthrough, I have also incorporated many of the townies, and I really like them as well.

While Strangetown remains very interesting to me, I grant that it may not be for everyone, and I love that the Sims 2 is so versatile to accommodate different interests and playstyles.

As for the limitations, I totally agree. The neighborhood layout is the biggest limitation for me, and I've fiddled with a lot of different options, but finally I just elected to add a more versatile subhood plus downtown and let Strangetown keep its small-town character.

I've also enjoyed the hood more since I put in the clean version that extended Olive's life (which I then further extended via various means) and gave the teens a few more days before growing up. However, the Grunt family has been, and still is, my favorite in terms of story.

Aliens - honestly, this is the part I've struggled with most. I wish the aliens had a bit more distinction from Sims in gameplay. Werewolves get a changed personality, for instance. I have tried to simulate a difference in personality for the aliens, but it's hard not to fall into a pattern of playing them exactly like the Sims--which I guess could be a story in itself, of how the aliens so desperately want to fit in.

I'm unsure if the conversation is still open to my opinion; ignore me if my opinion is void:
I'm talking about the community I witness on blogging sites that talk about the Beaker and Curious family and their relations. If I was younger I'd be very interested, and I remember being scared playing the Beakers as a kid, and playing the Curious family a lot. I do agree with the alien aspect. While Sims 2 did not introduce aliens, they did introduce playable aliens (I think?) and should have made something more interesting. I could bring up tens of ideas involving that. I could go on but I fear I'd come off rude.

If I play any of the Maxis hoods, then it's always Strangetown- I love the lots, and the sims! I've never played Veronaville or any of the EP hoods (apart from Downtown and the Uni and vacation hoods) much, and Pleasantview very seldom (although I do love some of the lots there). The real fun of the game for me has always been to make my own hoods, and my own sims.

As many of you know, the main neighbourhood I play is Veronaville, which for some reason seems to be the least popular of the three base-game 'hoods. I like the pre-made Veronaville playable Sims well enough, but they're not the main reason for playing the 'hood. I really play it because it's where some of my favourite Sims live -- in particular Andrew Jones (now Jones-Moltke) and his mum Gloria, who I made in CAS on my very first Simming day (30th November 2012). There are now over three hundred custom Sims (playables and townies) living in Veronaville and its sub-hoods (Downtown, Bluewater and Monopolis), so in some ways I think our Veronaville is somewhere between a Maxis 'hood and a custom one. In many play sessions I don't meet any Montys, Capps or Summerdreams, even though I play lots of community lot visits.

When I first started to play, I chose Veronaville because it had the fewest pre-made playable families -- only three (though there are also four Veronaville bin families). I was attracted to the idea of creating a custom 'hood instead, but I needed community lots, and there are none in the base game Lot Bin. As a complete newbie, I just didn't have the building skill to make my own. If Maxis had made a 'hood with houses and shops, but no Sims, I'd have chosen that, but, in the absence of such a Simless base game 'hood, Veronaville just seemed the best choice. At this time I knew about CC clothes and hair, but I didn't really know about downloadable lots. Even as it was, I wanted a public swimming pool for my Sims, so they could show off the skimpy swimwear I had downloaded and made for them, so I did build the Veronaville Swim Centre for them. Even this however was not really satisfactory in its original form, and required a couple of makeovers, before it was really satisfactory. Andrew still reminds me about the time I sent him there before I had worked out how to build working public toilets. Inevitably he got caught short! Of course he blames me -- and he's right (as he usually is)!

Well, as a newbie, I started a new hood at once.

I immediately made a couple of sims, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one - and with a bin full of sims, they needed houses. So I made a street full of Ranch Retreats. (Because they could afford them - I did not know much about cheats at all, never mind mods or that an online community existed).

Then I wanted community lots too, and so I started building them

They were "boring" and square (to be fair to myself, some were rectangular) all over with flat roofs and no foundations. And they were wonderful. My sims had a royal time visiting them, and so did I

Of course, I learned to build better and am happy that I did - but I will take one of my "boring" squares over many fancy lots that have just too much of everything on it and still don't play as well as my old rubbish lots do.

I might as well have created a custom neighbourhood the first time I played Sims 2. I had already played a bit of Sims 1 and had grown attached to the characters there (including some of which I had created myself) so what I did is I took Pleasantview and actually deleted all the Premades in order to re-popualte the neighbourhood with "my" Sims, including many of the premades from Sims 1. I even demolished the Goth manor and rebuilt it in its Sims 1 style.
Then at some point I lost that neighbourhood in some sort of computer failure, after that I learned about the Premade stories in Sims 2 online and after that I really fell in love with both the premades from Pleasantview and Strangetown.
With Veronaville....look...I'm not saying it's an absolutely terrible neighbourhood, but I'm disappointed in it. It could have done a lot more with the Romeo and Juliet/Shakespeare angle imo. And while I understand that the Tudor-style houses are a nod to the Tudor times in which Shakespeare wrote his plays, I really don't like that style or how they basically all look the same. I would have liked more of the ranch-style houses on the "Monty" side of town, I think they are very pretty.

But that's the good thing about Sims2, you can use the styles of house you like and you can totally change them if you don't like them (as opposed to say, Sims 4 where much of the neighourhoods is non editable background filler)

Not sure about "boring squares", but I'm happy to take a playable lot with enough room for all the sims, decent space to swing a camera (for storytelling), and no building issues from fancy features that cause trouble when you try to fix that one thing. I've grown very picky with downloaded lots over the years

I just don't see the deal with those itsy bitsy teeny weeny lots people seem to love. Perhaps fine for straight forward gameplay, but not good for taking pictures in. Or for sims to move around (sims getting stuck because of tiny spaces is just annoying, and building extremely small just because you can should be kept as a TS4 thing, since that one actually cares about counting tiles for tiny lots - I don't care that the sim can take a dump, shower and wash their hands at the same time because it takes up the same space as a TS2 toilet cubicle - gimme a bathroom that's a bit more than just "functional" )

Yeah, I agree that I value the playability of a lot a lot more than its aesthetics. Don’t get me wrong, I still like things to look pretty, and its amazing what some people manage when it comes to building/decorating, but to me Sims 2 s still primarily a game, and so I like lots that run smoothly and are offer good playability (and ways to expand when it comes to houses)

Most of my "boring squares" were built when I did not know any better. Having grown up in a railway town, most of the houses were boring squares I don't think they were that ugly - but they were quite ugly. The thing is, I was not bothered by that at all. if the room score was low, I just bought them an expensive painting, or, sometimes, even a statue for the front "porch" (which, of course, was just a number of swirling concrete blocks, since there was no foundation).

I do have a couple of those teeny, weeny, tiny lots in my Uni hood, on standby for when a new arrival at Uni needs a home because all 6 my dorms are full. (I have not used them yet, to be honest - and personally, with my own way of playing, cannot see any other use for them. The crowd doing the smustle at the next party simply will not fit).