When I place my mouse cursor over an icon in AWN, it does not actually zoom very much.
What actually happens:
1. I set "Icon Effects" to "Zoom" in AWN's preferences application.
2. I close the preferences panel and mouse over an icon in AWN.
3. The icon lifts itself from the bottom of the screen, but only grows a tiny bit to fill up about half of the space between it and the icons to the left and right. In other words, there is very little zooming and a lot of lifting.
What should happen:
1. I set "Icon Effects" to "Zoom" in AWN's preferences application.
2. I close the preferences panel and mouse over an icon in AWN.
3. The icon does not lift itself from the bottom of the screen at all. Instead, it actually grows horizontally and vertically to make a larger target for my mouse. To make room, the other icons shrink and are pushed to the side.
The 0.2 branch of AWN ins't able to create such an effect, because of internal structure. So the icons must keep in their own box.
That's also the reason why it isn't zooming that much.
So I must disappoint you, it isn't possible at the moment.