So I understand not wanting to watch some stupid animation over and over instead of just getting to the point. But some animations are helpful for seeing when things change.

In general, yes.

Here are some examples: MS Word (2013? I honestly have no idea what version I have installed what with the new UI) does a horizontal page-turn animation when viewing documents. It literally makes me nauseous, and I don't see any way to turn it off without entering document edit mode. Android's Camera app now starts up, shows the control buttons (video, camera), then animates them off the screen. They're not shown long enough for you to press one unless you're gunning for it, and you can't pull them back on screen until the animation finishes. Lollipop in general has a bunch of animations which exist solely for the sake of animations. If I pull a menu out, I want to immediately start using it, not wait for the slick, deceleration of the animation to finish before I can begin interacting.

It all reminds me of Vista's Aero interface. MS saw OS X, wanted translucency and drop-shadows, and implemented it in a completely useless manner that degraded usability.