I like the pace of combat in this game. Animation lock isn't that bad and it's being addressed in 2.0 which had been said numeruos times.

A bunch of the battle animations being sped up would look dumb in my opinion. Leave them how they are and plan ahead like you've been doing for the past 2 years. On top of that, I do like some of our lengthier animations. You get a feel for how powerful they are, like whirlwind from marauder/warrior.

Like a couple of others have said, this is a matter of taste.