Yeah, the absolute silence in most of the places I craft is a bit creepy. I know the /craft channel is usually pretty busy, but on my server it's become a bit of a clique (course I'd call it something else if I felt part of it
) and much of the chat on it is WTB, WTS, and WTT. Yawn.
People have forgotten about /say, or don't know it exists in some cases. Regional and global channels will do that to ya.
As for the animations -- I often play in first-person mode when I craft (which I never do otherwise, except in really close-quarters dungeons), partly to avoid the animations and partly to be able to see past all the #(*@*(&^ who feel they have to stand on top of me when there's plenty of room around the station. So I have a large personal pixel-space - sue me.
Point being, you don't see the animations in first person mode.