You can create a flash animation in Illustrator just as easy as you can make a gif in Imageready. So it depends on what you want to create it for...
You simply create layers for every cell you want (ie: copy layer and slightly move, copy layer again ... etc...) then exoprt as swf with layers to frames... make sure your layers go up meaning that your first frame is on the bottom.
Play around with it and it's possibilities and you will never need some of those old web software apps which SUCK at typography and vector control.
Cheers