I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
The problem is ... every major, substantive innovation runs afoul of their "feels like D&D" stuff. If D&D has to have 80's-era rules, innovation will be hard.
-O
I'm not so sure this is as insurmountable as one may assume. Or as negative.
Check out the current 5e fighter. It still "feels like" a D&D fighter. They didn't have to give in marking mechanics or superfluous feats or complex spell-like powers or lock it into "mostly melee mode" to make it innovative, and yet it is something completely new in D&D history with a mechanic that hasn't been present in any edition of the game, ever.
I'd call that a pretty major, substantive innovation. And it still remains true to D&D history, without the games that have come before as badwrongfun. Additionally, it doesn't invalidate future versions of the fighter (under similar or different names) that are less constrained by D&D history -- the game is infinitely extensible. So the myth of 5e being The Gognard's Game is already blown out of the water. Just because a game also permits an 80's style play doesn't mean it is necessarily confined to shoddy mechanics and stale design principles.
Personally, I'm not exactly "excited" by 5e. I'm certainly excited by some of its ideas (adventure-based design? three pillars?), but I feel like we haven't seen many of its best ideas yet. We're still stuck in "math-testing mode" at the moment. Which is fine, and necessary, but not, IMO, where the real awesome is going to be unveiled. So I'm not excited. I'm interested. We've still got 2 years to go, so I feel like that's appropriate.