It's modern tech, like has been said, in the old days a few mechanical guages in your car but with the ECU & it's computing power & a display you can now see what only the mechs could see or more, I do believe there is a place for animations they are intuitive, give the operator information at a glance but they must be designed in mind of the operator & what he needs to see at a glance not blind him with silly animations like valves actually moving, one good animation that goes against this is packs moving along a conveyor, just a green belt or motor symbol only tells the operator the belt is moving, some sort of simple shift register showing the product is on the belt is a good idea, does not have to be complicated just shows the production state at that time.
As for the colours, I have had so many different requests for company standards for example one company will use Grey for stopped (disabled), cyan for enabled but on running Red for running ? Flashing amber for alarm, the reason for red was that it's moving so dangerous oh. well each to it's own.