An example of a Death Bunny: the animator's survival kit is on my shelf. Sadly it doesn't address 3d animation very well. Still if you can adapt the principles correctly, it's useful.

The abrupt stop is the right thing to do for impact. Just because it's not physically possible or natural or whatever doesn't mean it's not the right thing for the game.

The biggest mistake in games is that people think realism or 'making sense' is important. They're not--though if you have a theme going, you should try to be internally consistent.

but what you ahve to do is ignore reality. It's not important. What's important is the impression that the player gets. Animating something to look real is fine if you're trying to make someone think it's real. But even then, reality is often disappointing. In hollywood movies they don't make blood look real, because nobody would believe it looks that way. Most movements in art since the classical period have been, in one way or another, a movement away from realism. The principles of animation themselves involve things like squash and stretch and anticipation--things which are not real.

One thing I noticed (for instance) in the new Star Wars movies (and elsewhere) is this tendency to make something move naturally and gracefully all the time. You could see for instance that big bar-tender guy in Attack of the Clones was this constantly moving entity--he didn't look convincing or real at all, even though all his movements were gracef...