Lightning was 10 years ago, and that was to replace the then nine-year-old 30-pin Dock connector. And I think the only feature that the Lightning connector had over the 30-pin was that it was reversible. Unless we count the size as a feature?

Actually, the 30-pin connector had a bunch of functionality that was lost when Apple moved to Lightning. The 30-pin connector could for example carry analog audio. The Lightning to 3.5 mm headphone jack adapter needs to have a tiny DAC inside it to actually convert to analog signal.

So if the suggested premise is that we are not going to be seeing "any more cable interface innovation", I'd argue that we weren't seeing much from Apple anyways.

Lightning was never available for other manufacturers. Maybe it could have won if Apple hadn't kept it to themselves.