Reaper actually feels very repetitive to me, the Soul Gauge system feels very '' looped '' for a lack of a better term.
Not saying it's bad, maybe it's just me not being a fan of gauges but I actually much prefer the Beast Chakras.

It should just happen more frequently imo, I feel like 40 sec feels too long especially with the removed positionals.

But yes the animations are a huge problem imo, going back and forth between Reapers it's the biggest issue I have currently.
Reaper feels so modern and MNK feels ancient.
Same animations since ARR, at least DRG has gotten most of them updated now.