Hey ferdztech, i just tested the animation avatar, and it only works when you click on the persons avatar (lightbox appear) and on the member/profile page. Only there.
The first frame of the animation is the main avatar image.
This will work with *.GIF files, not sore for *.aPNG ones.
I'm glad they do not show in the forums because I find animated avatars very annoying and it's very distracting to read a thread and have all that movement going on.
Very true CidTek, the animated avatar on all pages is a little childish. XenForo is doing right letting just one frame for the image, and if you really want to see the user profile you get the full animation.
And with the new forum platform change, most users don't have an avatar set up, it's the default question mark one, and when scrolling and a darker avatar pops-up it bugs my peripheral vision.