Despite the adventuring part getting old quite soon, because you always do exactly the same tombs, the rest of the EP is quite great. I really like the 3 skills, all the exotic build/buy/CAS items, and the 3 destinations worlds are absolutely gorgeous. Even today, I'm still amazed at the details EA put in it. Hope you'll have a lot of fun with it too!
To get back at your questions, the scary bugs:
1. The photography bug is indeed linked to the patch. You can avoid it by not taking any picture as long as any member of the household has an opportunity of any kind locked (career-skill-special-adventure). First fulfill those opp', or just cancel them, before you attempt any shot.
If by chance your Sim still gets stucked with the "take picture" action, save -> exit game -> clear the caches -> reload.
2. I think that it's only the digsites placed in the world that do not work (the action will auto-cancel). The ones placed on lots work fine.
3. Always save before you leave for a destination. If you want to save while on vacation, use "save as" with a specific name. So that, if anything bad happens, you can always get back to a previous save.
4. Try to avoid as much as possible the area between the Hot Springs and the fishing spot behind, in China. There is a huge routing issue there. As soon as one of your Sim visits these places, the game will send locals to "animate" them. But they can't find their path easily, hence the lag, freeze...
5. If you want to try the Martial art tournament, and you have Late Night, make a specific save point before you invite your first opponent with the phone. Why? Once you call this 1rst local, the game will generate the complete list of 25 opponents to beat to the Grand Master rank, and will sometimes include paparazi. Yet, they can't compete with you, so the tournament will be impossible to finish. If it happens, go back to the save point, and hope they won't be paparazzi in the list this time.
