> There are a ton of animations between slides in the screens. This is a waste of time.

If you make them fast enough but still visible they help a lot in showing the context. They can add some metadata which would be worse to explain otherwise. Of course there are also cases where they are flashy and waste time...

> those very popular mental cheetos activities

It's the first time I see this expression, but I'm afraid I have to steal and use it from now on. I love the comparison.