Well, lets be a bit more clear now.

I don't think they're comparing it to old CoX, for starters. Also, your example of power cusomization is kind of misleading because all you can do in CoX is change the color/type of your physical weapons. You can't pick any power you want and you certainly can't change the color or type of any of the non-weapon powers.

As for "custom" flight animations, you have to type in /fly 2 or /fly 4 every single time you fly, otherwise you'll just get the original pose. Also, I'd like to point out these aren't even animations -- just poses.

As for CoX changing, I'm fairly well-aware of it's limitations. In fact one thing Jack Emmert recently said, was that their biggest mistake was "designing to the max" Which means they didn't leave any room for changes or improvements when they made CoX. An example of this is that all the powers in that game have their colors "baked" directly into the animations, meaning you'll probably never see green fire or black lightning.