In general, we only really notice the animations that go wrong, like the ones that are too slow or get in the way, but when executed by the book (like the numbers material design published, or perhaps even slightly faster), they are a valuable way of communicating intuition for how to use the UI to a user.

But yes, I can understand the desire to remove them, or at minimum drastically reduce their visual impact for e-ink

Did I stutter? I would like them all gone. I would like all visual elements to appear exactly in their final position and not resize, except in direct response to user interaction.

Animations are one of the things that I hate about using modern UIs.