If animation sequencing were accessible by players, then emotes as we understand them now would no longer be a requisite feature per se. For example, if the wire-frame functions of a model (as given by the dyamic template/animation interface) accomodated players own personal animated sequence macros, then a more detailed and complex function of animated interaction would be allowed to occur.
I imagine that an animator would have to create specific frames of animation that were then recorded and made available as specific functions, not unlike emotes. Unlike emotes, though, all of these specific frames and more could be opened up for player use, thus promoting user creativity in macro management and animation-interface experimentation.
I realize this was not a Wish tool. However, all frames of animation open to any user ought to be visible to any other user. Despite the complexity of this particular mode of use, it remains viable because people will overcome the complexity.
I am thinking that this model of development would be more useful in an environment that is 1) "twitch" friendly, and 2) contains an accurate physics engine.
There must be thousands of different types of dancing that a human may partake in. However, only a couple of these are reproduced in our modern day mmorpg. Players ought to have creative control over the functions of their respective avatars, including movement in all its craziness.
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Have you read the white paper on MMORPG's yet? (edit) Found the link: http://www.igda.org/online/IGDA_PSW_Whitepaper_2004.pdf (/edit) This idea is a good one, but lets take SIM's for example. They made it moddable, so that players could customize things. I think it was 1-2% (100,000+)actually modded things and less than 0.1% were considered quality mods. Meaning, they spent a long time developing the tools and the payoff was pretty much not worth it.
Now lets consider animations. Let us think that this game would have a higher percentage of people who would try to mod things (animations) and say 5%. Even then, there is much more trouble than it is worth. The animators (some of which are using professional grade tools) would have to export these in a way that normal people could edit them. This would take the programmers (who already have an extremely daunting task) coding a set of tools just for this purpose. This in itself would require them to write a lot more code. Then, lets say that this was done. The user now has to not just make skins (which is simple in comparison), but has to animate the meshes. Trust me, I am learning this now, this is not something that the average user could just pick up and learn. Especially considering that MMORPG games are time intensive to PLAY, let alone mod. I don't think that there would be enough of the players who would be willing to set aside enough time that they could use playing, just so they could add a few new emotes. There are a number of other issues that I could bring up, but I think I have made my point.
Criaus, please keep coming up with ideas (some of your others were superb!), but realize that some of them are just not going to work. It is only through the idea process that we will be able to make a game that we all love. No offense is intended here, I hope you understand what I mean.