I just wanted to add that in addition to the "casting animations" the regular spell animations themselves are lack luster -- even compared to FFXI.

Here are some of the more recent spells (in smaller sized icons unfortunately) that the same team(s)/people have been working on.

http://killingifrit.com/forums/uploa...1313769504.jpg
http://killingifrit.com/forums/uploa...1313769516.jpg
http://killingifrit.com/forums/uploa...1313769522.jpg
http://killingifrit.com/forums/uploa...1313769534.jpg
http://killingifrit.com/forums/uploa...1313769541.jpg

While these spells still suffer from the same unfortunate syndrome of "I can only originate on the target instead of from the caster or the environment," they still somehow look far superior to the spells currently available in FFXIV... why?