Anyone who has participated in a community discussion about Sims 3 over the past year will likely have encountered at least one person who has said all the Sims 3 Sims look very bland and very 'samey'. This is something I firmly kept an open mind about when going to the Creator's Camp because whilst it's certainly a fair statement about the previewed Sims, custom Sims 2 Sims look vastly different and quite often more original, from the Maxis Sims that shipped with the Sims 2. In that respect I was very interested to see what could be done with the facial controls by someone who is perhaps less encumbered by Maxis' middle of the road approach.
All in all, despite Maxis' assurances that the options are much more subtle and it's possible to create anyone as a Sim, I am not 100% convinced having seen it first hand. To an extent because each subset of controls is hidden away in a sub-option, it's easy to get an impression of there being less compared to Sims 2 Bodyshop, but in practice even pushing the sliders to the extreme did not really produce particularly unique results. No doubt the faces are smoother and do animate better, but the essential nature of each Sim seemed to be very much the same. I understand this was a deliberate choice by Maxis, but I'm not sure that all fans are going to respond as well as they'd hoped. On the plus side, it is easier to create more realistic looking Asian Sims, something that was a problem in Sims 2.
There's no Elf ears option in Sims 3. I mention this because it's a popular component of Sims 2 and something I knew many creators and players would miss. All I can say is I did ask Maxis, I begged and pleaded but no, it is not going to happen!