I was playing wild world the other day, and noticed a big difference in the level of engagement, like in wild world they'd come up to you a lot more often and sometimes multiple villagers at a time will need you, in ACNL it's less frequent, it's a bit like they keep themselves to themselves :/
I think that's why i'm less engaged with villagers nowadays compared to before (though it's partly due to lack of time and focusing more on other aspects of the game like town designing than villagers)