Functional large cities vs. smaller eye candy cities

[Libertyville 164]

After playing several cities, I have come to the  following realization.

If you want to create complex transit systems and urban layouts and focus on primarily functions, you need to prioritize large and complex building, and use fewer assets and do less details. Too many assets and details will slow down the game to a ridiculous level. Also, details take a lot of effort and time. It is unrealistic to do that on a large scale. 

If you want to create eye candy, realistic cities with great details, you should build smaller cities with much less focus on functionality. 

With the current Parklife update, I haven't been able to play an existing city that I had been building for a couple of years. I realized that every update runs the risk of destroying an existing large city. You simply won't get to "finish" a large city due to the frequencies of updates. Building both functionality and aesthetics will not be feasible.