Live animation may be just cosmetics, but if I change tactics the result still doesn't change and then live animation is just useless compared to other game. If it's there I'd like to be useful to actually see how my team is performing and should be faithful (well mostly at least) to what is actually happening.
What you say about normal or offensive mentality usually happen anyway from what I experienced, and if defensive gives more chances of starting effective attacking moves, then why does attacking mentality even exist? If I need a comeback and use attacking, I lose the ball more. I should have gone defensive. Wow, fat chance! I also conceded goals on counter attack while playing defensive which is nonsense. I needed to score a few goals today with my 4-5-1V and changed tactics to no effect (see my last opened thread).
Either live animation has to be more faithful, or the game engine should be more transparent and give more feedback if you are doing good, because if he generates crap on random without refleting your decision then we are just pretty much playing blind. The AM is also pretty much useless on giving hints..
I've seen too much crap to accept anything coming from this game (nothing personal on you)