I finally got some animation to work in Unity (sort of):

It's clunky, but it's functional and it got the job done this time.  If anything, this experience has taught me about how much I to0k for granted in every single digital experience I had in life.  From my first time playing Super Mario in 2D on N.E.S., right through to the insane complexity of a complete 3D world like Skyrim, there was so much I took for granted:

Every movement a character makes needs a different animation - it seems so obvious in hindsight, but in computer language you need a simple logic of: this happened? do this.  That happened? do that.  You need to assign a new animation for every move you want to make.  Think about getting up out of your chair and walking to the door - 1) you're sitting, 2) you rise up out of your seat, 3) you turn to the correct direction, 4) you walk to the door, 5)you stop, 6)you open the door, 7) you walk through the door, 8) you turn around, 9) you close the door.

That's a lot of moves for a simple action.

It might seem obvious, but you have to code every single step to get the result you want.

Another obnoxious thing is the walking speed.  If the movement speed is even slightly out of sync with the animation you get a sort of "bounce" as the character tracks around their own center zone.

This is really where you see the "deep-dive" into Unity beginning: Anybody can throw down a landscape and arrange a few objects, but it really takes skill and persistence to think out animations, triggers, logic patterns and keep grinding that out until you get the desired effect.