As far as matchmaking in the romantic sense is concerned - no, I haven't tried that. Only once, when one of my villagers looked remarkably like my real life man I hooked him up with a girl that looked a bit like myself. Call it jealousy!

What I do definitely do, though, is try to control who breeds with whom. I attempt (though not always successfully) only to have master villagers have babies in the hope that my kids will get smarter. This sort of works, mainly because I only ever have women go after guys, never the other way round.