1. The only thing that comes to mind is motion of object caused by wind, but it's not suitable for ocean water anyway. 2. There is one, but it doesn't support vertex displacement. It's rather a simple shader, so no big deal.
Yeah, I haven't figured out anything new about non-bone-based animations. But I also haven't pursued it much since the post you apparently found. Good luck!
Are morph targets not enabled in the animation exporter at the moment? You could certainly do that on a loop, I'd imagine--haven't tried it yet, so I'm not sure how it works. Although, from a conceptual standpoint--how high exactly do you want these waves to be? More than a Normal map would be adequate for? Or are you thinking more along the lines of water lapping up onto the shore?
It takes more than just an animation to make well performing water displacement in a game. It's something best left to programmers.
