"too unpredictable & buggy".
hmmmm .... odd statement. Worked for hundreds of addons, including my own.
Just another thought (as to why yours is different to 100's others) if you wanted to persist.
Instead of animating just a couple of points in the LOD, place a tiny cube inside of the main body and animate that. Maybe it doesn't like animating just points, maybe it needs faces.
If the axis is beside the cude then no one will ever see it.