Interesting discussion 
Regarding purchasing food: I think this could be a good addition. In Sims 3 I actually really liked to go to the store an buy all the ingedients if I was not growing these myself. But I have to agree with @Carnel that for this to be enjoyable we first need a revamp of the shopping system so that you can click once, select all that you need and then purchase it. Actually exactly the system which we had in Sims 3.
As for the home phone: In most parts of the world really everybody has a smartphone these days. In the western countries most households do not even have a home phone anymore. And even in less developed regions of the world you see everybody walking around with a smartphone, just maybe not the latest newest model. I would not see much gameplay benefit from having a home phone. And if we have to buy our smartphone or not - for me both is Ok as it would be a one time action and that’s it. Except if they would add benefits in having a better smartphone, like additional features / options you can do only with the better phone. Then it would make sense to save money to get the newest, best phone and maybe pass the older one over to you kid like in real world.
Regarding the inventory I really do not agree. I think this would just complicate the gameplay and make it very annoying as @Carnel said. Already at the moment it is really bad if you are gardening and harvest a lot of stuff + want to invest into tool building, thus need a lot of twigs and stones to make the tools. Then you are constantly over the current limit of 100. As long as we don’t have any meaningfull storage options this is a real issue. But even if we get these: if you would always need to think of the bag to take with you if you want to shop something or mine a couple of piles… I don’t know.. I think it will be something we would get annoyed by really fast. You forgot the bag, so go back home, go back to the shop… you want to go out afterwards for dancing and don’t want to have the bag with you - go back home to store the bag, go back to the club. I don’t think this traveling back and forth would make the gameplay more enjoyable.
And for the cars: I am all in. Would like to see them parked near to where you arrive and for home lots to park them directly on your property.