If I remember this right, theymos removed them because they were too distracting. He disabled them right before sig camps starting to go crazy on them. If he didn't, we all would be wearing animated, flashy avatars and the place would look like a Chinese brothel.
It was a good call for our eye health.
Is it right? I think you've provided a great example to illustrate how annoying the forum looks because of animated avatars. Lol
Personally maybe I don't really like using animated avatars as they might have a bit of strain on the eyes. Obviously if all bounty campaign and signature campaign require forum users to use animated avatar then I think there's a lot of time wasted just watching those avatar dance. It seems theymos has made a proper effort to ban animated avatar from growing on the forum.