I agree with what you're saying. I think the whole connection between handhelds and home consoles started with the GC and GBA. The actual basis for connectivity was a solid idea, unfortunately it was never taken advantage of and so there were little benefits for connecting your GBA to a GC and vice versa. Games such as Wind Waker where the GBA could be used as a radar to find secrets were good enough but we needed more, however developers simply didn't want to take the risk.
It seems to me that Nintendo has taken a good long look at their mistakes in the past and learned from them. They've realised that connectivity is a good idea if it's done well, hence the DS and Revolution.
As for the innovation of the two consoles, well Reggie said himself that the DS was only the starting point. I think the DS and Revolution were conceived at the same time. Creating two consoles, which will provide gamers with a completely new and fresh experience. I hope Nintendo capitalise on the DSs' success and come up with some decent advantages of owning both a DS and Revolution. Possibly downloading game demos, using the Revolution as a hotspot etc.