I've been in web design for for a little over a decade, and I HATE most animation, I hate flash intros, I generally hate flash entirely unless it is minimal and done well. Perhaps I just come from the old bandwidth-conscious school where any unneccesary clicking was anathema. I remember very well the flaming, spinning logos of the late 90s.. lol

That being said, I love AJAX/Web2.0 stuff provided it adds something valuable. I have no problem with drop down menus as long as they are done with DHTML not some stupid plugin (Sorry Adobe, I hate flash. It can be cool when done well, but is generally so unneccesary and annoying)

Clean, elegant, and without requiring plugins is the way to go.