How 'bout instead of simply clicking the cancel button, you have to do a "press and hold" click? Hold the button down on "Cancel" for 5 seconds so the game knows you really really mean it!

And seriously, add a table flipping animation. Everybody wants one.

I'd also like to suggest an angry animation for botched syntheses. Right now stuff blows up in our face and we just sit there with blank expressions.

Remember the goldfish scooping events in FFXI, and how sad us poor Tarus looked when our scoops got torn? Something I enjoy the most in FFXIV is watching the expressions on my character's face during cutscenes.