I've been using PPT XP for about a year now, creating lots of animated images and text. (We don't have a live band, so I synchronize the slides with MP3 split trax). The animation capabilities in XP are pretty awesome compared to the previous versions of PPT. The one I use most often is fade in and fade out. It's very smooth, you can vary the speed at which things fade in and out, and you can fade and move and jiggle and spin multiple items at the same time.
