Odd, that hasn't happened to me.
The animation thing kind of makes sense to me. I think they figured no one really wants to turn off animation unless they want to mega-tinker with the phone, hence placing it in developer options. For in-pocket detection, I don't know if that's an ICS limitation or if Moto just decided to ditch it, since I had seen a number of posts in the past about glitches related to this.
As was mentioned in a previous (snarkier) post, it's folder creation, which is a nice feature of ICS (and which is also present in iOS). If you want to interpose an icon rather than make a folder, you just have to make sure you're releasing it right between the 2 icons. Having just set up my wife's iPhone, it's the same issue there--you can easily make a folder by accident. But no sweat with either iOS or Android--you can easily undo it.
Although folder creation is a nice addition to ICS, it actually isn't necessary with the Maxx, because you can do the same thing by customizing your own app drawers and then placing shortcuts to those drawers on the homescreen. The advantage is that you're not limited to 16 apps/folder when using drawers.
Anyway, sorry that you're so frustrated with ICS. I hope part of it is just getting used to a somewhat new system. Maybe in another few weeks, it'll seem more second nature, and you'll forget what Gingerbread was like.