All of those I listed are completely different now to when they were first invented. To the point of being unrecognisable. And all of that is because of real world innovation from real world engineers solving real world problems.
This anti-innovation mindset is just as damaging overall as everyone using the latest tools and ignoring the more proven ones.
How is this article anti-innovation? It's saying, "Don't adopt a solution that doesn't actually fit your needs." It's not innovative to use MapReduce to do payroll reports at the end of a quarter, when a simple SQL query can produce the exact same thing. It's just silly. It's not innovative to select something that overfits your needs unless it actually prepares you for your (ideally known, but at least high confidence expectation) needs.
I shouldn't drop a bunch of money on an underutilized system unless it offers enough benefit.
Quite. And, as you've said, combining a bunch of tech you don't need into a poorly fitting solution isn't particularly innovative. The innovation tends to come from using the right tools for the job and creating a great solution using them.
There is absolutely nothing "anti-innovation" about saying don't use technology designed for problems you don't have, for reasons you can't articulate.
Innovation is driven by addressing problems people actually have with new ideas. Chasing taillights is a very poor driver for it.
This anti-innovation mindset is just as damaging overall as everyone using the latest tools and ignoring the more proven ones.