Stage four vampirism in Dawnguard

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I just recently got the PS4 version of Skyrim, which comes with Dawnguard (among other expansions) included (previously I played Skyrim on PS3). I became a vampire very early in the game and decided to go with it. But I just had an odd experience.

I had my character sleep in my house in Whiterun, and got the notification upon waking up that I've become blood-starved and am now hated and feared. I thought "oh crap, I screwed up", because I forgot to feed on someone and now I'm in the middle of a town. But I figure, ok, I'll wait until late night, go outside and find someone to feed on. So I sleep until 2am, then go outside in sneak mode, with calm spells at the ready just in case. Only I forgot that I'd just made my sneak skill legendary, so it's low-level again. Immediately I'm caught by Amren passing by, who says "divines smile on you, friend". Eh? Is that what you say to a hated and feared stage four vampire? Confused, I got out of sneak mode and started walking around openly, and not a single passerby expressed any hostility toward me. Not Adrianne, not the guards, not those two bugged Alik'r guys who spend eternity at the entrance of the city.

I thought this must be a bug, so I got online to check, and it turns out that Dawnguard removes the threat of being attacked as a stage four vampire. So, all game, whenever I've reached or approached stage four I've been sneaking around trying to feed before I get caught, but it turns out nothing happens if I get caught. I admit, it's a bit disappointing. It's odd enough that nobody notices my character's deformed face and glowing orange eyes that shine brighter than the moon(s); now they don't even care if I reach stage four vampirism.

So I'm wondering, what do other players think of this? As a result of this, other than the weakness to fire (which itself is reduced in Dawnguard), there's really no penalty at all to being a stage four vampire. It just seems to me like there should be a price for it, other than the standard vampire daytime penalties and the slightly increased weakness to fire. Having to stay on top of that and make sure not to get to stage four if I was going to be in a populated area was always part of the vampire experience for me. I even had the memorable experience in the vanilla PS3 game of being stuck in Cidhna Mine in Markarth while in stage three, with the clock ticking down to stage four, trying frantically to get out of the mine and out of Markarth before that happened; I ended up going stage four shortly after escaping.

But now, it seems stage four vampirism is all benefits and almost no penalties. Especially the ability to resurrect powerful zombies to fight for you. Is there any reason not to be in permanent stage four vampirism in Dawnguard? Unless I'm about to go up against a fire-breathing elder dragon or something, I see no reason not to. And even with that, I wouldn't have a much easier time as a stage 1 vampire, and I could use resist fire potions/enchantments anyway. I could continue feeding on people just for roleplaying purposes, but it seems a bit silly to weaken yourself just for roleplay.
 
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