I can see why they chose to remove passive animations (less stress on the server), but yeah I can see how the lack of animations could not help a player unless they look at the skill cores bar.
I would be fine if all they did was put a marker underneath the player, like the medal of valor that you see for Field Commander. It does not even need to shine, all it has to do is follow whoever it effects.
I find myself forgetting that people are buffed or debuffed because there are no visual reminders (other than the image under their name) but the image is very small, and I just completely forget about it.