It's all part of one system though. The animations are part of the CGI. I wasn't just talking about the graphics; I'm talking the package as a whole. Movements, expressions, animation, detail, all of it. Jurassic Park was a good example, because they use both puppets and CGI to demonstrate their story, and they did a very good job of it. A few (and I mean very few) scenes have some very rigid, somewhat skippy animations that isn't no ticable to people who's eyes aren't trained to pick up on it. If you replace "Avatar" with "Jurassic Park", and this were 17 years ago, you'd be saying the exact same thing.
I'm not saying it wasn't well done in Avatar, but the fact is, it's not black or white on the details. It's all about perception. Once Battle Angel comes out, you'll be looking back on Avatar saying "things weren't as smooth as we had thought", much the same as now that Avatar is out, people look back on Beowulf and say the same thing... And before Beowulf, it was Polar Express.