Animations aren't just useful for when you have an audience. They convey a sense of space that's important to help the user orient themselves within the operating system. Things instantly appearing and disappearing is jarring, and you can easily lose your place unless you maintain an internal model of how everything works. Remember, Apple is laser-focused on user experience, and subtle animations are a part of that. Users have a hundred other things to do and the applications they use should be as low of a cognitive burden as possible.
I agree animation can help get oriented with a new system but they quickly get in the way. Some people even like having animations just because of the feel of it and that's fine too. I don't mind UI having the animations as an option, even if it's on by default, I just want a big, fat single button to turn them all off.
Side note: I expected to be downvoted heavily for my original comment given the bad tone (animations are a sore spot for me, I get emotional about it) but some how the opposite happened. Obviously I was 100% correct :) but I should have been less of a dick about it.
