I have to assume the animations are a personal preference. There's certainly nothing about them that stands out to me.

I can't speak to app switching as it's really not something that matters to me to the extent I couldn't tell you how well a lot of apps, Lemmy related or not, do with it. I'm glad it covers your needs for you.

I don't know what you mean by peek to see posts. Maybe it's a feature I didn't enable when I tried it?

You're absolutely right that having options is a good thing. The problem I have is when a vocal group pushes hard on theirs being the best. It stifles variety. Since Reddit had a large number of Android apps that didn't seem to be an issue. The audience was always varied when someone had a recommendation or request. Lemmy is new to a very large part of its userbase. I worry that if "sync is the best" gets too overgrown then other apps that might venture in will look to replicate it, rather than make their own choices.