I genuinely hate the new WAR animation.

[TouchandFeel]

You'd think by late 2021 they'd have learned how to spawn a separate, not-player-relative doodad, with the axe just being yanked over as needed via an old Holmgang-like chain. But alas...

They can do that and have the tech for it, all it requires is spawning a separate entity from the attack action. They do exactly that with ground AoEs that stay where you drop them. However that entity has an actual purpose and sticks around for longer, so the computational resources used for it make more sense, whereas spawning a separate entity just for visual purposes and then despawning it a couple seconds later is not efficient and makes far less sense in terms of justification.
So it's not at all a matter of them not being able to do it when it is a matter of the superficiality of the end result not justifying the cost of the means of achieving it, especially when there are other potential solutions that could give similar end results without such cost.
I honestly feel people in general are way too quick to denigrate the capability of the devs on these forums when they themselves have likely little to no real knowledge of video game development and particularly the extra complications of an MMO. Don't get me wrong, the devs can and do make mistakes; they're human, it happens. But the way they often get hyperbolically portrayed like apathetic bumbling morons is a bit much, especially considering that they have put in an extensive amount of time and effort creating a game that we all seem to enjoy. There is nothing wrong with presenting our ideas and feedback, questioning the devs or even pointing out where we feel they may have slipped up; but perhaps dialing back the condescension and snark is warranted.