Honestly, after reading your post it sounds like Puresim might be better suited for your tastes. Don't get me wrong, I personally think ootp is the better game, and I know this is an ootp board, so I don't want to come across as steering you to the competition, but I'm just trying to be honest.
Expansion drafts are not part of ootp, but you can do this via the edit league structure menu. Where you can add/remove/move teams.
Manage mode doesn't have any kind of animations and there are no in game sounds at all. It is also pitch by pitch and does not support one pitch mode this year.
As for the Lehman database, it's doesn't come installed, but you can download the csv version from baseball1.com, which ootp2006 supports.
Why not give the demo a test run though and decide for yourself?
btw, welcome to the board
