That's correct-the residents of Arundel do live in the Middle Ages, where coffee was not yet invented. They prefer ale. Lots of ale.
But even my pixels in Tinsel Town don't drink coffee-they prefer beer.
I've got a bunch of lushes in my towns. They're more fun that way.

I'm not fond of dart boards or stereos..sometimes even chess boards, they are just too "attractive". Houses with kids and toddlers get the play table. I prefer expensive tub/showers...just because it's cold HERE in RL, and my feet are cold.

On EVERY lot?
Nothing, I think, but a dishwasher may be leading the other objects, especially because my neat sims love to clean up on community lots I simply don't have a good reason to put one in a park (where I will make sure my sims don't have too far to walk to the dustbin).
NEVER?
The cheap bath/shower combo - although I may have used it in a lot without cc once in a while. I'd rather put down the green bath. Or the cheap shower.

I realize that I don't use that much of the TS2 content being a meh decorator and builder, I'd rather play the game.
Most used item is the satanistic sofa.
I have never use the solar panel.

Dart boards and chess tables are on every single lot, either in the Modern or Medieval times. Pixels like games, and being social. Both of those provide them.
As for other items:
Simblender, Batbox, Lot SyncTimer, XPTL's clock, Christianlov's Visitor manager & Mirror, Inge's move-out bush are always on each and every lot-no matter what the time period or neighborhood.
I can't play the game without them-and I've tried very, very hard. I just couldn't do it.

Always? Batbox, pizza box, Simblender, ACR Adjuster, and lotsynctimer. Fire alarm/fire sprinkler and burglar alarm, pretty nearly always. A lot of sims have solar panels. Windmills and TVs are very rare in my game. Some of the statues never make an appearance: the one that looks like a giant windchime, the character statues. Modern Art of any category is very rare: even if my sims would like it, I don't care for it and don't really want to look at it. This is rather like how my sims almost always listen to Classical or Metal on the stereo, because it's what I like to listen to, not because it's what they would like to listen to, being picky about sounds is also why I don't put in TVs often, and many lots don't have computers. I almost never use the womrat or toy dog, but use the parrot and the non-caged pets pretty often, but that's because my sims don't roll wants for those and I forget they exist, but they do roll pet bird and dog/cat wants.

I couldn't think of what I always use but Sunbee reminded me. Always the batbox, visitor controller, sim manipulator and ACR adjuster. A fire alarm (despite the fact I have a no fire mod because I was in a house fire in 2012. My sims can die any other way but that, and I still often have them study fire safety), and I try to remember a burglar alarm. A new home always gets one but in already made ones I can forget to add it until after they get robbed.

The only object I have on every lot would be the batbox (recolored so it kinda, sorta looks like an air conditioning unit)

As for things I don't ever have, well that weird party game...what is it called Myshuno? I also don't like to use that bubble blower, since it's basically a water pipe it's too close to smoking for me, and smoking is disgusting.

Every house has the bat box vase, weather jar, day setting jar, sim blender. Most also have the hobby jar, teleporter jar and visitor controller.

Replying to myself as to display the effect, can't blame the Tricou family for this one anymore. any downtown now has this effect. time to repair the game files again it seems...

Oh no @Sims2Christain what a sad thing! You could start a thread in the Help Forum, there are lots of people here who have good experience with troubleshooting problems with graphics and hood corruption, maybe they could help?

I quite often use some of the things others are saying they never do. Myshuno is on a few of my community lots, and also I have it in the common area of one of the apartments which gives lots of amusing thigns for me to watch.
The cowplant is ONLY on the Secret Society lot, it's taken a few Uni sims (none of my playables though) but it now has a locked gate around it so it's somewhat controlled.
Of course I always have the batbox and SimBlender, but I never use Visitor Controller- I just let them all go where they want! And sometimes get funny results, which is why I leave it so. I also use a little mod that Gummilutt made for me which allows me to clear or set room mate flags in-game, as I use room mates quite often- sims even have them when they live in ordinary houses, as lodgers. It is a way of getting the townies and NPCs into the gameplay more, and I don't usually control them (unless I have a storyline for them) so I get the daft things they do to make me laugh.
I use the lips sofa quite a lot- Sim Sample had it in his house for a long time! And quite a lot of sims have the love tub or hot tubs- I have community lots with them too, and some apartments have them in communal areas. I like seeing sims make friends!
The giant art pieces I really love for using in my botannical garden, amongst the plants. And dartboards or chess boards are great for communal areas in apartments, or community lots, too! Great for building friendships.
I have the bubble blower at some Uni dorms, and Wade my stoner guy had one too in his house. I need a mod for that though, as sims don't build relationships using it.
Cleanbots are something that I use a lot too- one of the founders of my town was Sherman Boggle who ran a robotics shop, he made a servo who now runs it (and she makes servos too). So when I'm playing those, my other playable sims usually turn up and buy something. Consequently most of them have some kind of bot in their inventory, so I tend to put these in their houses and have them clean up plates and old newspapers (very useful for parties). But, they go wrong a lot, which for some reason (it doesn't take much to make me laugh) I find hilarious, so I always make the sim chase them around and switch them off, then call a repairman only to have the bot turn itself back on and the repairman leaves without fixing it! And repeat. Sometimes the pets chase them too! And the sentry bots are great for guarding the gnome collection, sims get zapped but not always (as those go wrong too), so I still get some of the gnomes stolen, unlike the electric gnome mod. I also just started finding more cleanbots in the inventories of sims who already have them in their homes, and I used to ignore these but recently started putting two in a house. Now this is even funnier, because if one goes wrong, the other chases it around, cleaning up the mess it makes. Entertainment for me what the sims are asleep!

Included on all my residential lots: the batbox, sim blender, teleport cat, visitor controller, treeag freezer clock, burglar alarm, fire alarms although I have the no-fire mod so don’t know why I bother with that, ACR adjustor, and Inge’s move-out bush. Sometimes the weather controller. As for furnishings, nothing goes in every single lot. Almost all my sims are rich – I don’t want limitations on lot design, that's way more important to me than game play – but I don’t routinely include televisions unless I need an easy way to get them to sit down together and interact as a group. Computers aren’t provided unless I have a specific reason to include one.

What goes in a community lot depends on the lot. All of them have the batbox, sim blender, teleport cat, visitor controller, and treeag freezer clock though.

@simsample
Your game sounds like a lot of fun. I also love seeing pictures of your hoods.
Bots look fun in others simmers game. I'm contemplating allowing them back in my game except servos.

My sims do not have much money and live in small houses boxes. They barely have room for hot tubs.
Me hating loan IRL have an impact on my sims. I barely allow them to get loans but I also love running businesses.
I wanted my game to be challenging regarding money but the lack of it is not always that fun. So I'm currently testing out an inheritance money hack.

Anytime I play the SC3K city I based my Mt. Hyaltitoud terrain map on (and at this point "play" really means "watch like it's an aquarium because everything is pretty much perfectly balanced so I don't actually have anything to do") I find myself wishing I had the patience to actually make a reasonable version of it for TS2... I love this city for some reason!

The Charlatan stole money from a policeman, while inside the police station community lot I created...
like how brazen is he?!

I thought I'll had a peaceful play session in Bonneville tonight. The game decided otherwise.

I think I'm psychic. Tonight I dreamed that my founders had a dragon living on their lot (though I was semi-aware in the dream, thinking "I know there aren't actually dragons in The Sims 2... but they do have one, of course they do" (I wish)), and today I came across these toys in which the TSM dragon looks exactly like the dragon the founders had in the dream. I would have wanted it and the other stuff in my game anyways, but now I kinda need it. It is, after all, the dragon of my dreams.

Whatdayamean, there are no dragons in Sims 2?
There most certainly be dragons:

Dazzling Dragons

Not in my game, there be'nt. But there SHOULD be. Is any certain expansion or such required for those?

I have no idea-although it would probably help if you have at least NL, if not higher. I'm not sure, because it's not mentioned. The dragons aren't NPC's, and so they won't be populating the neighborhood. Rather they're semi-static objects.

Hopefully, then. Yeah, I thought it was odd it didn't mention it at all. Guess there's only one way to find out.

I'm making all the relationships for my new neighborhood and it couldn't be more tedious, I'm still shaking when I have to add memories ... buhh. At least I already have the photos taken. I realized that some sims would look better with more tanned skin, but I already have the photos taken, so I'll have to think about it when I start my next neighborhood

I relate to this so much! I've been creating a custom hood and because it'd bother me for sims not to have pre-established pasts and relationships, I've been doing that in SimPE. It's less nerve racking than long and tedious, though. It's why I take long breaks when developing that one So, I began making another hood that has a half dedicated to supernatural sims and another half dedicated to human sims. The point of that hood was to make families and play. Of course, me being me, had to give those sims preset ages, memories and relationships, too...It's just satisfying to see it all slowly come together

I do the relationships part with simblender and insimenator, maybe with SimPE would take less time, but I'm lazy to learn it. I recently downloaded a mod to avoid relationship decay and get a bit of that preset effect.

Some of the neatest little things are hidden away under decorative or miscellaneous. Not really hidden, but sometimes I don't think to look at decorations. Nice little details that make the house look more "lived in". I like to put the computer clutter on the computer desk, because it reflects me in real life. Never know when you might need another cable, hard drive, etc.