Battle animations are all played out in the client, in the Flash player.
Battle animations stress the client's computer, not the server.
All the server does is send/receive information from the client.
You are absolutely right. I stand corrected. Now having said that, all those wasted cycles means that there are fewer cycles that I can give to Cancer Research. They use the spare cycles in my computer through the IBM Word Community Grid.
The opinions expressed on this post are my own as a player, not as a Moderator.