You can use Exp points to buy factor upgrades. People were commenting about it being so easy to keep obedience so the most of the obedience boosters got nerfed. Now having classes like Watchdog and Dancer are more important. Also the Sex Toy class has a valuable skill. The Performance and Shared Toy boost obedience for everybody a a location so it only takes a couple of Dancers and/or Sex Toys to keep everybody happy. And of course there are Mean skills that also boost everybody at a location. I also started using luxury rooms in a more strategic way. It did take me a while to adjust, but once I did I could keep a reasonable Obedience for a modestly large roster.
I do think the number of dates was nerfed too hard, but again people have been saying that it was trivial to boost stats with dates.