It might be useful to note that the problem was also circumnavigated by the old (and sadly) depreciated 2 button navigation - i.e. you could remove animations and not have to put the phone into developer mode to get 3 button working in a still compromised but slightly faster x0.5 animation scale either.
I appreciate 2-button nav wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but, I always thought it was a good (and working) halfway house between gesture navigation (battery and time wasting with the drag and hold unwanted muscle memory) and the ok three button system.
Now using three buttons - but as others describe, removing animations (either by settings or developer options) breaks the recent items (square button) animation - annoying when 3 button is given as a (useable!?) option during setup!