Eva and FLCL have very linear plots, as far as the plot itself is concerned.
Eva is an elaborate representation of too many things. The show's writer admits that he intentionally tried to make everything symbolize something different to many viewers, so that it would be impossible for too many people to arrive at the same conclusions. Basically, it's full of religious/philosophical/psychological themes.
FLCL is a much less complex and much more comical metaphor for growing up and what path you take to maturity.
Go for the spicey food.
Advent Children did indeed have very little plot, despite the Japanese version making a tad more sense. The animation quality was better than anything else I've ever seen but I've noticed that the people at SquareEnix have issues with rending hair when it's wet in everything they do. They don't even try apparently. Either that or everybody has waterproof hair.
And it's totally possible to make the masamune just appear like that, especially since it's FANTASY we're talking about here. When you're super powerful like that, you can probably just absorb material from around you to manifest the sword like that. After all, he's standing in a crater, and the sword does appear in a flash of green flame.
But you know what? The best voice acting in the english version was Zack. All 20 seconds of Zack. That's just sad.
