I'll disagree. You're not looking at what true innovation is about. Innovation isn't about what something IS. Innovation is about what something DOES. I'm guessing you're not a cyclist of any sort.
Two of the things you're pointing out as merely being incremental features - derailures and materials such as carbon fiber and the like - have fundamentally changed cycling. Not because of what today's bicycle IS... but because of what it can DO. The where, and the how, and the who.
Without derailures - multiple gears, and more importantly the ability to change gears - there'd be no mountain bikes. In fact, it would be exceedingly hard to pedal any bike up even a modest hill and down the other side without a derailure.
The lateral stiffness and vertical forgiveness that carbon fiber offers not only strengthens a road bike but makes it far more comfortable to ride - further, faster, longer. By older people. By people who are not as powerful as someone else who could stomp the pedals of a 20lb chro-moly bike of two decades ago. I'm easily doing 100mi rides today that I couldn't dream of 20-25years ago.
What appear to the naive observer to be subtle changes in frame geometry take a bike only fit for long comfortable rides and turn it into a speed demon with the right person pedaling it of course.
I could go on about tire technology (I can go 2000mi between flatting) or saddles, pedals, and handlebars (the three places where you contact the bike) or how BMX bikes influenced the entire generation of boys that spawned mountain bike or how the addition of shocks to those mountain bikes changed where mountain bikes are ridden. Or how the "where" of where mountain bikes are ridden today - by more people, further afield - has had a demonstrable impact on conservation efforts around the world.
Don't look at what something IS to try to find innovation. Look at what it lets you DO.
---------- Post added November 25th, 2014 at 12:57 AM ----------
What do those things let a diver do that they couldn't do PRIOR to their introduction? In what way have they transformed the experience of diving in a meaningful way? Can you now dive somewhere different? See things you couldn't see before? Can people dive now that couldn't dive before?
Don't get me wrong, those things above are nice to have. But on the whole, I'd argue that diving is exactly the same after their introduction as it was prior.
BEFORE: Strap a tank on your back, go underwater, breath through a demand valve regulator, and look at pretty fishies.
- Horsecollar BCD
- Personal dive computers
- Recreational nitrox
- rebreathers
AFTER: Strap a tank on your back, go underwater, breath through a demand valve regulator, and look at pretty fishies.