I agree with you on all accounts. I've played a lot with animations and flash; and if they're part of a "story" they're cool. If they're just a splash screen they annoy me. I mean if you have to go to a site often, - and you have to wait for that flash thingy to load every time, that is a pain in the royal ***. On the other hand; there are a lot of flash interfaces that are efficient, fast and very appealing! So it all boils down to context, design and usability.