I think so to, but usability research done by a partner company of ours showed, to their and our surprise, that "ordinary users" prefer this page turning effect.
Case in point: touchscreens replacing dials and switches in cars -- cool right? So flexible! But no, in reality they suck and you can't use them at all without becoming a danger to yourself and everyone else on the road. Physical dials and switches are way better because they can be controlled without actually looking at them. But this is something that takes a while to become obvious to people (in fact, car makers are still fucking this up).
You can easily, to the detriment of results, create an environment where people say they like something when really they like the impact the the thing had on them the first time ("oh, cool") when really they don't prefer it at all but the record only reflects their initial impression.
With such a common use of them, we can start looking at how to optimize the catalog format itself, rather than stick with the scrolling vs. catalog format discussion.
because of course your users say they like the flashy effects, but you should never listen to your users when they say things like that. that's the sort of thinking that leads to sounds when buttons are pressed.