The only issue I saw is the toner color match on laser models could be a bit better. Still highly recommended for anything except photos.
"Innovating"
The high-speed inkjet-bar systems and Dye-sublimation printing kind of specialized in photographic printing.
Patents do expire eventually. I think most people mistake 23 year old ideas as "innovative" when they enter the high-volume consumer markets. Derivative and opportunistic is a different business model.
One, propably accidental, innovation was Epsons ET-8550 / ET-8500: Dye ink based tank printers in A3+ and A4 respectively with two blacks and grey. They produce very decent photo prints, even B/W, decent color management and incredibly low cost per page for inks. They are somewhat pricey so, but can double as a home office printer. Something a, say, Canon Pro-200 cannot.
And I am not sure if print quality is so much different, both being dye ink printers (the Epson ones have a second pigment ink which is used for certain media settings, works reasonably well on normal photo paper but not great, results are supposed to be very good on some fine art papers which I haven't tried yet).
I say accidental, because Epson never marketed those two as photo printers. There is a reason so why no decent photo printer is included in any pay-per-page service, otherwise those would be great!