Neither the connector itself nor the application are innovative. Which is why nobody is pointing out the particular innovation in the connector.
[0] https://www.yamaichi.de/products/connector-solutions/card-co...
You can call just about anything "not innovative" if you're sufficiently reductionist about it. The idea that the only "true" innovation is some totally unknown, totally revolutionary idea that came completely out of nowhere fully formed is a toxic one that robs people and companies of just praise for coming up with interesting and useful new things, while others get lauded for making a whizbang concept prototype that's never going to be commercially viable.
This is something no one has done before, even if many of the parts have been done in different ways. That's innovation.
I appreciate them improving on the current situation and I love that I'll get SSD performance with SD convenience but it doesn't have to be innovative for me to do that.
[0] https://www.yamaichi.de/products/connector-solutions/card-co...
The requirements back then were much lower than what this connector delivers. No real need to dissipate heat or handle PCIe signals.
This is a market innovation, not a technical one.
[0] https://images.anandtech.com/doci/14711/Screen%20Shot%202019...