Thanks for your input.  It wouldn't have killed EA to make a slimmer BS, taking out the cloning function and just having you able to make unique sims.

So I've learned that Life Stories doesn't come with body shop. Is this legit? I mean, I've never found anything in my searching, but I just wanna make sure.

Would I have to install Sims 2 in order to use body shop to make unique looking sims? Is there anything that's standalone? Something newer than the Sims 2 pre-release standalone program?

I want to make my sims look different instead of alike. I use custom face templates, but that gets tiring. I have some sims packaged on some DVDs, but I want to make new ones. Any solutions?