I totally agree with this post. The battles feel extremely slow due to the animation lock. It was okay back in the FFXI days but now after playing all the other games in the market with smooth game play, this type of system in FF feels like an old machine running with a conveyor belt that every movement is sitting in queue being processed one by one.

I play MMORPG for that immersion experience and this chopped up battle rhythm is kind of a killer.
I have to agree the animations in FF is very detailed, superb among the competitors (Wow has one of the worst looking animations) and if we could push the battle system to become more refined and smooth, FF will at least win at this part of game play.