I far prefer the character models of VII to VIII, and I never felt that character animations were limiting the conveyance of emotion. In fact in the more realistic looking games (VIII and on) I find any awkwardness of motion to take away from game immersion. With VII and any sprite based games even though the motions aren't always completely realistic they don't seem to take away from game immersion (to me at least).

As for describing their motions as simpler than predecessors, I would have to disagree, though there is not much I can argue unless I show the initiative to quantify all the motions characters perform.