I'm not sure it did back in the mists of time, running on my steam powered pc, but I'm playing differently now because I can turn the game on so quickly, and switch between households and neighbourhoods so easily.
With the other sims games I need to plan ahead and sometimes I don't bother if I haven't got much time.
Another thing is my building is so much quicker too, so I spend more time playing. This is because the options are more limited, and it takes less time flipping between lots.
Designing sims is so much quicker too, less options speeds things up.
So my tendency to go all 'fussypants micro-managing' is thwarted and I actually enjoy that aspect.
It feels like the focus is so much on live gameplay and I'm less overwhelmed with a 101 distractions.
I'm really enjoying the experience.

(edit : so far I haven't downloaded any custom content, and I'm not in a rush to do that, minimalism is in!)

Yes! TS1 loads lightning-fast, so I can play even if I only have ten minutes.

I don't have a ton of downloaded objects, but I do have some, and the game still loads very, very quickly. I don't want to have to scroll through a huge pile of objects when furnishing my house, so I've picked the sofa I like the looks of, cloned it, hacked it to give a great comfort score, and priced it in line with that comfort score. The same for lots of other objects. So my houses may all have a navy-blue sofa, but they can all be furnished quickly. :-)

I've been less disciplined with faces and clothes, but it does mean that I can have a lot of sims, have each one in a different outfit, and not have to use any of the outfits I think are ugly. :-) And it's great not to have to pick out a party outfit and a summer outfit and blah, blah, blah. I pick out AN outfit, and they're done. If I get tired of looking at the ugly pajamas, I can use my hacked dresser to give them better PJ's, but I don't have to give them a zillion different outfits before we even get out of CreateASim. And you're right; that's very restful!

I could see me adding some faces and clothes, if only to avoid 'townie clone syndrome'!
Thank you for your responses @Corylea, I really appreciate them.

My game loads in probably less than 1 minute (I haven't actually timed it) but it's fast. As fast as a blink. I've actually cut down my custom content quite a bit from what it was at one time. I mostly have a lot of things like couches, and trees. I've cut the clothing to a minimum, and have barely if any custom heads. I know what you mean about sims 4, it can take Hours and hours to create one sim, and all the outfit catagories. Way too much. Sometimes Less, is More. I've cut the wallpapers and floors to a minimum also. I hate trying to decorate but having to scroll through an endless amount of choices.