I am totally on par with your thinking. Except the good writing part. I thought the writing was very bad, especially at the start, with the party setup and the boyfriends.I like what I saw, renders are good as always, good writing, interesting scenario....., but if this was a DLC called "Ellie's pijama party" or something.
A couple of months were wasted. And this was the big update so far (if I am not wrong, 760 renders)! It is hard for me to understand why L&P takes out characters or scenes, who are about Sophia and her corruption and want to include this shit!
We are different people here, we have different interests, but no matter if you like Dylan, Sam, Ellie, Patricia, Morello or his brother, Aiden's blackmail, Bennet's blackmail, her husband's boss, the old gents, lesbian shit, swinger stuff, cheating, NTR..., we all here like Sophia! I think that 760 renders will be all morning, plus first side job in the next day! So, like I said before, I'm disappointed!
I think the only reason I'm kind of ok with this update is that I liked Aimee a lot. From the teasers I didn't think anything of her but I think she became my second favorite female character from AWAM, after Sophia, looks wise. Will now probably spend too much time trying to figure out what her Daz model was and how to recreate her