The brightness of the shadow doesn't bother me much, but the pulsating and blinking everywhere really annoys me! It's way too much a distraction when playing, especially when you are not a beginner anymore. I agree that it is a good tool for tutorials and maybe training games to see what you options are durign each step of the game.
As for what bothers me most - definitely No. 1 (cards in hand when it is your turn). The blinking and pulsating is just distracting.
But also case 2 (played cards in the expeditions) is unneccessary - why would you need to highlight a played card?! The thing about highlights is, when you highlight EVERYTHING, the highlights get kind of meaningless...
This also applys to other games, the blinking, cards and spots in Keltis Cards for example are toally unnecessary and rather distracting than helpful. All the movement and blinking and spinning makes it harder to focus on the actual game. Maybe you could dial the whole highlights-and-blinking-thing back a bit in general?