The problem with facial animations is it might put limits on the number of cool and varied faces (and as a by-product, Races) we can create. Factor gendered faces on top of it and facial animation gets really expensive and really complicated.
To me Race and character variety beats facial animation hands down and @gerryjacobs absolutely nailed massively emotive characters without any facial control (seriously hard thing to do). This kind of thing makes me proud, it’s Wonderstruck working at it’s best and within our constraints: the tiny team making a big game!