Maxis said that they release 4 Sims 2 products a year, 2 stuff, 2 expansions. One expansion is a remake of the old one(So next is either SuperStar or Makin' Magic) and the other is an original with ideas from the community.

Also, stop bad mouthing EA, if it weren't for EA Spore would've never gotten off paper. Even Will Wright shows gratitude to them for their deep pockets and support.

Hold off on buying BV. There is something in the code that makes the game really laggy, even on high end computers.

Please note that EA Maxis made this game, they put the content in, and EA Maxis uses the same group of people to make all The Sims 2 content. Do not attack EA as the publisher, the one who distributes funds and require milestones for the developer.

For Hula dancing, where ever there is a speaker, someone will eventually dance. Yoga was always available as an option before Bon Voyage, Tai Chi is randomly done in East Asian lots, and your Sims will Tai Chi more than they pillow fight, which is greater than they play hackey sack in Open For Buisness

De-fragmenting your HDD will help.
Memory doesn't seem to be a problem, because even with 3GB of memory, the game lagged after loading anything. However this was before I defraged, leading me to believe that data access was the problem.