I think this is just where we're gonna disagree. Personally, I don't view the Sandbox as standalone. It's part of the game. Wild Life isn't just the campaign side of things, the whole game encompasses both game modes, so to say it's just animations isn't accurate since it offers more than that. I can respect that some people don't care for the Sandbox, that's cool. But that doesn't invalidate the work the devs put into it and means people get to pretend it doesn't exist just to say the devs haven't progressed over the years.
The campaign side of things in WL is still very bare bones, but the Sandbox is well developed/polished. CI has content going for it but the porn is meh, WL has the porn going for it but the amount of content is lacking. Both games have their strengths and weaknesses.