Having watched this ep for a second time, with the sub, I am revising my opinion upward. Enjoyable from beginning to end, with some outstanding animation and voice-acting, good visual and verbal jokes, and lovely money-saving stills and shots of the closet door (which I thought worked great, following Yamakan's storyboard, no doubt).
Akiba talks about liking the episode of Lolikko Cutie because it was made by a favorite animation director, whose connections bring in great key animators (sure, that's why he liked it, lol). The actual animation director of this episode, I believe including the Lolikko Cutie part, was Matsuo Yuusuke 松尾祐輔, a former KyoAni animator who did key animation on
numerous episodes of FMP:TSR, SHnY, Kanon, and Lucky Star, then left and has done key animation on Daughter of Twenty-Faces, Macross Frontier, and ep1 of this show (up to the end of Jin's carving scene).
It's not clear whether he is now an employee of Yamakan's company, Ordet, but Yamakan gave him his first actual animation direction job on episode 2 of Kemeko Deluxe, which was written, storyboarded, and directed by Yamakan. This ep of Kannagi is his second.