Wow these are great ideas! I’m only on mobile right now but suffice to say just about everything you want can be done, and probably with the stock firmware I plan to ship. If not, I’ll work with you to add the features you need because this is exactly what I wanted to see.
For now take a look at the Particle REST API docs.
https://docs.particle.io/reference/api/
I have functions already exposed to play animations on demand. Also the clock can be setup to never play animations unless they are called as “alerts” from the Internet.